Governorate of Vatican City State and Vatican Museums
Extraordinary maintenance of Michelangelo’s Universal Judgement in the Sistine Chapel
PRESS RELEASE
Vatican City, 2 February 2026 - With the erection of scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel, the extraordinary maintenance of the Universal Judgement has begun: for approximately three months, Michelangelo’s supreme masterpiece will undergo a cleaning procedure.
The Sistine Chapel will remain open, continuing to welcome the faithful and visitors, while, behind a high-definition reproduction of the image of the Last Judgement itself, restorers from the Vatican Museums’ Paintings and Wood Materials Restoration Laboratory will carry out the cleaning operations.
“Around thirty years after the most recent conservation work on the Universal Judgement of the Sistine Chapel”, states Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums, “completed in 1994 under the supervision of the Director General Carlo Pietrangeli and carried out by the chief restorer of the Vatican Museums' Paintings and Wood Materials Restoration Laboratory, Gianluigi Colalucci, extraordinary maintenance will be performed on this masterpiece of Michelangelo’s mature period. It will last for around three months, and is supported by the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums”.
“Commissioned to Buonarroti in 1533”, explains Fabrizio Biferali, Curator of the Department of 15th- and 16th-Century Art, “by Pope Clement VII for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, the Judgement was only begun under the new Pope Paul III, who appointed the Tuscan artist ‘supremum architectum, sculptorem et pictorem’ of the Apostolic Palace, releasing him from his contractual obligations for the tomb of Julius II so that he could devote himself exclusively to the Sistine project. Michelangelo began painting the scene in the summer of 1536, completing the immense work (approximately 180 square metres in area and 391 figures) in the autumn of 1541. On 31 October of that year, Paul III was able to celebrate solemn vespers in front of this extraordinary painting which, as Giorgio Vasari wrote, “filled all Rome with amazement and wonder”.
In continuity with Colalucci’s intervention, which marked a turning point in the understanding of Michelangelo’s palette, in subsequenty years the paintings of the Sistine Chapel were the object of constant research and monitoring activity by the Vatican Museums, necessary to evaluate their state of conservation in relation to the high daily influx of visitors. As a consequence, the Research Laboratory undertook a programme of preventative maintenance of the entire decorative complex, intended to safeguard the frescoed surfaces through the systematic removal of deposits that had accumulated over time. Over the course of the years, in operations conducted exclusively at night with the aid of mobile platforms, have progressively addressed the walls with Michelangelo’s lunettes, the series of the Pontiffs, and the large fifteenth-century scenes.
“The Universal Judgement, which has been excluded until now”, adds Paolo Violini, Head Restorer of the Painting and Wooden Materials Restoration Laboratory – “is now the focus of a specific maintenance campaign, made necessary by the presence of a widespread whitish veil, produced by the deposition of microparticles of foreign substances carried by air movements, which over time has attenuated the chiaroscuro contrasts and rendered uniform the original colours of the fresco”.
Today’s intervention, made possible only by the installation of scaffolding covering the entire surface, will allow the removal of these deposits and the consequent recovery of the chromatic and luminous qualities intended by Michelangelo, fully restoring the formal and expressive complexity of the work and renewing, some thirty years later, the amazement that accompanied the conclusion of the great 20th-century restoration.
The extraordinary maintenance work, which will involve other important professionals from the Vatican Museums such as the Cabinet of Scientific Research, the Conservator’s Office and the Photographic Laboratory, is supported by the Florida Chapter of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums.
INFORMATION
Vatican Museums Press Office: stampa.musei@scv.va – tel. 06 69883041.
