Work for the protection of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel

During the summer, the French company Carrier, assisted by technical staff of the Vatican Museums, installed a new ventilation system in the Sistine Chapel to protect the famous frescoes from the pollution caused by an increasing number of visitors. This work will also provide a new lighting system and should be open to the public in early October.

Numerous times in recent years, the director of the Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci, warned of the risk of ever increasing numbers of visitors to the frescoes painted by the great masters of the Renaissance, including the vault painted by Michelangelo. The museums, who welcomed 1.5 million visitors per year in the early 1980s, see nearly 6 million today, with peaks of up to 30,000 people in one day. Dust, human pressure, carbon dioxide, temperature changes are all harmful elements made by visitors that damage the microclimate of the chapel.

This is why the French company has installed a system of heating, ventilation and air to replace the one it had installed in the early 1990s. This system is designed to be twice as effective than the previous one, with triple capacity.

(Sources: IMedia / APIC - DICI No. 300 of 09/12/14)

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