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Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgment’
A team of 20 restorers is removing a calcium lactate salt film that dulled Michelangelo’s fresco, preserving its original colors ahead of Easter, Vatican officials said.
- Launching the restoration on Saturday, the Vatican Museums began work to remove a whitish residue from the Sistine Chapel fresco, with Barbara Jatta describing it as `a bit like a cataract`.
- Fabio Morresi said scientists identified the deposit as calcium lactate, `invisible to the naked eye`, caused by visitors' perspiration and transpiration, the Vatican said.
- While work continues, visitors will still enter the chapel as Vatican Museums conservators are dabbing the fresco with distilled water through Japanese paper to lift deposits under a large scaffold covered with a reproduction.
- Because the project is so large, officials say this is the biggest facelift in more than three decades after the 1994 removal of some painted cloths, and work continues while the chapel remains open due to scale, following the Sistine Chapel restoration campaign started in 2010.
- Nearly 14 metres high and covering 180 square metres, the fresco includes 391 figures, is sponsored by US donors, and Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta compared removing the veil to `a bit like a cataract`.
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91 Articles
A scaffold covers the great fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel: inside, the restorers put themselves every day before the figures created by Michelangelo's brilliant hand to clean a white layer that has been opaque since its last restoration, more than thirty years ago."We have been forced to place a scaffold because, although the fresco is in very good condition, we needed to remove this layer of salt. It is an extremely easy ope…
Long-term exposure to moisture has caused chemical deposits to form on Michelangelo's famous Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, and they are carrying out the most extensive restoration in decades.
Michelangelo's Last Judgment is in for a cosmetic procedure: restorers are removing a layer of chalky, white salt coating from the Renaissance masterpiece that has accumulated since the last maintenance work thirty years ago.
Away to the process of maintenance of Michelangelo's Last Judgment inside the Sistine Chapel. "We noticed that there was a very thin white state, which was discovered to be a salt "the calcium lactate," explained Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums. "We will remove it with distilled water and Japanese paper," explained the chief restorer Paolo Violini.
Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgment’
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” is getting a facial, with restorers removing a chalky white film of salt that has accumulated over the Renaissance masterpiece since its last major renovation three decades ago. The Vatican on Saturday gave the media a sneak peak to the cleaning operation, which is taking place on a floor-to-ceiling scaffolding that has obscured the imposing fresco of heaven and hell that dominates the fron…
A chalky layer of salt has appeared on Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco. The contamination is being removed through meticulous restoration.
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