Every day at least 10,000 people – 20,000 in high-tourist season –
enter the Sistine Chapel.
People from all backgrounds, languages and
cultures, from every religion or no religion.
The Sistine Chapel has a
fatal attraction; it is an object of desire, that essential point of
arrival for international people of museums, for migrants of so-called
“cultural tourism”.
On
31 October 1512 Julius II celebrated Vespers, inaugurating the vaulted
ceiling after Michelangelo's unbelievable effort which lasted four years
(1508-1512).
The Pope never could have imagined that the more than
thousand of metres of frescoes were to bring about a violent torrent, a
bearer of happiness but also devastation, as Woelfflin's beautiful
metaphor from 1899 goes.
In fact after the ceiling, art history radically changed in Italy and
Europe. It would never be the same again.
The vaulted ceiling began a
season of art that textbooks call “mannerism”.
The ceiling, according to
Giorgio Vasari, was to become a beacon destined to light the history
of styles for the many future generations of artists.
Today five million visitors a year inside the Sistine Chapel, 20,000
per day at peak periods, certainly bring about a difficult problem.
The
anthropic pressure with dust, the humidity which bodies bring with them
inside, the carbon dioxide produced by perspiration involves discomfort
for visitors and damages to the painting in the long run.
We could limit access, introducing a maximum number of entries. And
we will do this, if the pressure from tourism were to increase beyond a
reasonable level and if we were to fail in resolving the problem
efficiently.
But I believe, despite what has come out in the media, that
in the short to medium term limiting entry will not be necessary.
However it is necessary to implement the most advanced technological
provisions capable of ensuring the removal of dust and pollution, the
fast and effective exchange of air, and temperature and humidity
controls.
Giovanni Urbani, a great master of our studies, said that our era has
not been graced with a new Michelangelo.
But we have been graced with
technology which allows us, if used correctly, to preserve
Michelangelo's work which history has given us under the best
conditions, for the longest possible time.