Millions of tourists pour through the Vatican Museums every year. Sadly, they don’t realise they are leaving a piece of themselves behind.
Human sweat is being blamed for the damage caused to Michelangelo’s masterpiece, The Last Judgment, inside the Sistine Chapel.
The good news is that it can be successfully resolved.
Seven floors of scaffolding have been erected in front of the 1,938-square foot (180 square metre) artwork and restorers are working painstakingly to clean the discolored paintwork.
“It's not only a work of art, it's a work of the Holy Spirit,” says Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums.
“It is not only of Michelangelo, not only of his time, but the soul of generations. So it’s this incredible masterpiece that has no time and no words to define it.”
Standing on the scaffolding, the Vatican’s chief restorer, Paolo Violini, points to the skin tone of the artist’s celebrated muscular figures to show the discoloration caused by the perspiration and the breath of the visitors.
“Microparticles that circulate in the air inside the chapel and through the air flows of the purification systems have caused this deposit on some walls, but especially here,” he says, as he points to a figure on the Renaissance masterpiece.
Despite an attempt by the Vatican to limit the number of daily visitors to around 25,000 per day, human impact on its precious artworks remains a challenge.
Mr Violini says lactic acid, emitted by human sweat and also from the breath, is said to be causing the damage to Michelangelo’s celebrated work.
Combined with the calcium lining the chapel walls, the lactic acid turns into calcium lactate, a white crystalline salt, which leaves a film on the artwork and diminishes the ‘chiaroscuro’ or contrast between light and dark tones.
Experts have been cleaning and conserving parts of the chapel at night for years, but the Vatican said Michelangelo’s spectacular masterpiece needed more intense work, in order to restore its luminous quality.
Painted on the wall of the chapel altar between 1536 and 1541, the artwork is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and God’s final judgement. It shows dramatic scenes of anguished human souls either rising to heaven or descending to hell.
Around 30 restorers are using light Japanese paper soaked in distilled water to gently absorb the patina. They are working their way across dozens of huge muscular figures, both sinners and saints, seen twisting and turning in agitated and often violent poses.
Michelangelo’s explicit depiction of naked male bodies in his work provoked outrage in the Catholic Church and accusations of indecency. Up close you can begin to see why.
But the challenge for the Vatican is to balance the number of visitors with its commitment to conserve its collection of precious artworks. From a peak of 35,000 tourists per day, numbers are now restricted to around 25,000 and the opening hours have been extended to control the flow of visitors.
But that does not rule out another conservation project in the future.
“Despite the reduction in visitor numbers, this problem may reoccur in 20 years’ time,’ says Giandomenico Spinola, deputy artistic-scientific director at the Vatican Museums.
The Sistine Chapel, which is also famous for the conclave of cardinals which elects the pope, will remain open to the public throughout the restoration works which are expected to be completed before Easter in 2026.
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