Vatican restores Michelangelo fresco as salt veil is lifted
Michelangelo’s monumental fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel is undergoing a new cleaning campaign to strip away a chalky film of salt that has slowly dulled its surface since the last major restoration in the 1990s. Vatican officials recently allowed a small group of journalists onto the scaffolding to see the work up close, where the contrast between treated and untreated sections was visible in the difference between dusty, whitened patches and newly luminous areas of color. The operation is taking place on floor‑to‑ceiling scaffolding that hides the vast scene of heaven and hell behind the chapel’s altar, but the Vatican Museums say the project should finish by Easter in the first week of April. During the works, visitors can still enter the Sistine Chapel, though they must settle for a high‑resolution reproduction of the fresco projected on a screen covering the scaffolding in place of a direct view of the original.
Experts at the Vatican Museums say the white film is the unintended result of mass tourism in a confined, delicate space, with around 25,000 people passing through the Vatican Museums every day. According to Fabio Moresi, head of the museums’ scientific research team, salt crystals form when lactic acid in human sweat reacts with the calcium carbonate in the wall beneath the fresco, a process intensified by higher humidity in the chapel. He notes that warmer conditions linked to climate change mean visitors perspire more, raising moisture levels and accelerating the chemical interaction that leaves the painting looking as if it is coated in fine dust. Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta has compared the salt layer to an eye cataract that clouds vision yet can be removed without harming the underlying structure when handled carefully.
Conservators are using a deliberately gentle method that relies on distilled water and Japanese rice paper to lift the salt without disturbing Michelangelo’s pigment. Sheets of the paper are soaked, then applied to the fresco’s surface so that the moisture dissolves the salt, which is then wiped away once it has migrated out of the paint layer. Up on the scaffolding, the effect is immediate: uncleaned areas appear pale and desaturated, while cleaned sections reveal intense blues, fleshtones, and fine brushwork that had been masked by the haze. Observers say details such as the hair of Christ at the center of the composition and the rendering of his crucifixion wounds now stand out with a clarity that recalls the dramatic transformation seen after the late‑20th‑century restoration.
Other frescoes in the Sistine Chapel receive regular maintenance using mobile platforms that can be driven into place at night, but “The Last Judgment” presents particular logistical challenges because it rises behind the altar on raised marble steps. That configuration makes it impossible to reach safely with cherry‑pickers, forcing the museums to erect fixed scaffolding that locks the work behind a wall of metal and planks for the duration of the operation. The current intervention is the first extraordinary cleaning of the fresco since the long restoration campaign that ran from 1979 to 1999, when conservators removed centuries of soot, wax, and grime from Michelangelo’s ceiling and wall paintings. Small fragments of the pre‑restoration surface were left untouched at that time so visitors can compare the nearly blackened original condition with the vivid colors uncovered by that earlier project.
Looking ahead, Vatican officials say the goal is to protect both the artwork and public access without imposing drastic cuts to visitor numbers. Rather than sharply reducing entry, the museums are studying ways to better control temperature and humidity, including improved filtration systems and other technologies to stabilize the chapel’s microclimate. The hope is that a more sophisticated environmental system will slow the formation of new salt deposits and extend the period before any future intervention is needed on Michelangelo’s masterpiece. For now, the cleaning offers a rare chance for specialists to revisit one of the world’s most famous frescoes at close range and restore some of the visual impact that has been muted by decades of human‑made haze.
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