Restoration work begins on Michelangelo's 'Last Judgment'

By Paolo Ondarza

The installation of scaffolding for the extraordinary maintenance of the frescoes of the Last Judgment has begun in the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museums announced in a statement on Monday.

30 years after the “restoration of the century”

Paolo Violini, the Head Restorer of the Painting and Wooden Materials Restoration Laboratory of the Vatican Museums, announced last summer that the cleaning intervention had become necessary due to the presence of a “widespread whitish film.”

This occurs, he recalled, just over thirty years after the so-called “restoration of the century,” which revealed the brilliant colours of Michelangelo’s masterpiece.

This film, he noted, originated from “the deposition of microparticles of foreign substances carried by air movements, which over time have diminished chiaroscuro contrasts and evened out the original colours of the fresco.”

Sistine Chapel to remain open

Throughout the three months during which the work will be carried out, the Sistine Chapel will remain open, continuing to welcome the faithful and visitors.

The restorers will work behind a high-definition reproduction of the image of the celebrated fresco.

The scaffolding will cover the entire surface and will allow the specialists to recover the original chromatic and luminous qualities of the work.

The intervention is supported by the Florida Chapter of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums and, in addition to the Restoration Laboratory, involves the Scientific Research Cabinet, the Office of the Curator, and the Photographic Laboratory of the Vatican Museums.

Under continuous monitoring

In continuity with the major conservation intervention completed in 1994 under the supervision of the then Director General Carlo Pietrangeli and carried out by Chief Restorer Gianluigi Colalucci, the paintings of the Cappella Magna have over the years been the subject of constant investigation and monitoring by the Vatican Museums.

These activities are necessary to assess their state of conservation in relation to the high daily influx of visitors.

A programme of preventive maintenance of the entire decorative complex has been undertaken by the Restoration Laboratory to systematically remove deposits accumulated over time. Until now, these operations have been carried out annually, at night, with the aid of mobile platforms, and have involved the walls with Michelangelo’s lunettes, the series of the Popes, and the great fifteenth-century scenes.

The masterpiece that fills one with “awe and wonder”

Attention now turns to the great and celebrated wall behind the altar, commissioned from Michelangelo in 1533 by Pope Clement VII and begun under Pope Paul III.

With its 180 square metres of painted surface and the 391 figures that animate it, the work was completed in the autumn of 1541.

When the Pope celebrated Solemn Vespers on October 31st that year, before the masterpiece, Giorgio Vasari recalled, all who saw it were “filled with awe and wonder.”