The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo's "The Last Judgment" is currently undergoing extensive restoration.

The monumental fresco Last Judgment (on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel) is undergoing extraordinary maintenance as part of efforts to remove surface deposits and restore the chromatic and luminous values intended by Michelangelo. For about three months, this masterpiece by Michelangelo will undergo a cleaning intervention.This project shall bring fully back the formal and expressive complexities of the painting, rendering possible once more that shock of wonder which was felt at the time of major restoration in the twentieth century just thirty years ago. It was one that took place in a period not much more than thirty years ago.Even though preparations for the scaffolding have already begun, the Sistine Chapel will continue to be open, welcoming worshipers as well as visitors. The cleaning will take place under a high-definition screen by which an image of Last Judgment is seen being performed by restorers from Vatican Museums’ Laboratory for Painting and Wooden Material Restoration.Barbara Jatta, Vatican Museums and Cultural Heritage Director: “About thirty years after the last intervention of conservation on the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel—completed in 1994 under the direction of General Director Carlo Pietrangeli and work by Gianluigi Colalucci, Chief Restorer of Vatican Museums paintings—a special maintenance project will start. It is supposed to take three months on this masterpiece from Michelangelo’s mature period.”Fabrizio Biferali, Curator of Department for Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Art emphasized that in 1533 Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. He explained that the project was started, “only under the new Pontiff Paul III who assigned the Tuscan artist to the post of supremum architectum, sculptorem et pictorem Apostolic Palace freeing him from former contracts concerning the tomb of Julius II so he could concentrate fully on the Sistine endeavor. Michelangelo began painting the scene in 1536 summer and after a vast work (about 180 square meters area comprising 391 figures) completed it in 1541 autumn. On October 31 of that year, Pope Paul III was able to celebrate solemn Vespers before that great painting which, as Giorgio Vasari noted, ‘filled all of Rome with awe and wonder.’” Paolo Violini is the present Laboratory Chief Restorer for Restoration of Paintings and Wooden Materials.“We are currently performing focused maintenance on the Last Judgment because this is where a general whitish film - formed from deposition by airborne microparticles on alien matter brought in by air currents - has reduced contrast between light and shadow and homogenized the original colors of the fresco over time.”This has made it necessary for the Restoration Laboratory to draw up an overall preventive maintenance plan for carrying out decorative complexes; such a plan includes wiping off systematically every type of deposit that has accumulated there through several years.“This extraordinary maintenance intervention also involves in it the Scientific Research Cabinet, Office of Conservator, and Photographic Laboratory with possibility only due to generous help spreading wings from Florida Chapter Patrons of Arts in Vatican Museums.