Is an elderly lady entitled to a facelift? Well, when she has to receive an average of 20,000 visitors per day a little bit of visual refreshment never goes amiss.
The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, one of the most sacred chapels in Christendom and the place where the College of Cardinals assemble to elect a new pope, was sporting a new look tonight.
The facelift, however, is about more than aesthetics. Given that six million people now stomp through the Sistine every year, the Vatican Museum authorities have opted to install a new lighting and air conditioning system. The idea is that the temperature in the Sistine remains constantly within the 20-25 degree band. All of this, of course, to ensure that the chapel’s extraordinary collection of frescoes, by Michelangelo (and others) are at least relatively protected.
Speaking last week about the chapel’s future, director of the Vatican museums Antonio Paolucci suggested that maybe the time has come if not to reduce tourist access, at least to fix a “cap”. He argued that the current figure of six million per year may well be too much.
Tonight, however, Mr Paolucci was more worried by the sight of the massed, TV camera-humping ranks of the international press than by tourists. More than once, he and his assistants felt obliged to point out to the not always episcopal-looking hacks that the “Sistine is a holy chapel and would you please show some respect”.
Some chance. As maybe 300 journalists, and a number of hangers-on, elbowed their way around the chapel, taking pictures and paying little or no attention to the usual bevy of boring speeches, respect was just a little thin on the ground. But even the cynical hacks had to conclude that the new-look Sistine, illuminated by some 7,000 Osram LED lights costing about €3 million, looked stunning.
For example, the lighting above Michelangelo's famous but terrifying Last Judgment fresco on the end wall behind the altar catches the decline into darkness and hell. Most visitors to Rome tend to put a visit to the Sistine high on their list of priorities. As of now, they have even more good reason to visit the scene of some of Michelangelo's greatest works.