A visit to the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City can be overwhelming, and not just because of the breathtaking Michelangelo frescoes
hovering over your head.
The crowds can number in the tens of thousands
per day, all trekking in some sort of dust or dirt that can be
detrimental to the 16th-century art.
Soon these small particles of
pollution and flakes of hair and skin will be vacuumed from visitors
before entering what Pope John Paul II appropriately called “the sanctuary of the theology of the human body.”
All that body heat and exhaled carbon dioxide is also a major problem, and the Guardian quotes Antonio Paolucci, Director of the Vatican Museums,
on the careful cleansing that each visitor will go through: “We will
cover the 100 metres before the entrance with a carpet that cleans
shoes; we will install suction vents on the sides to suck dust from
clothes and we will lower temperatures to reduce the heat and humidity
of bodies.”
Previously, they relied on an air extraction system, but it is now
20 years old and unable to combat the film of dirt forming on the
frescos, that were restored not too long ago between 1980 and 1994.
And
for Paolucci, limiting visitors isn’t an option, as he wants to keep it
accessible to the masses.
Perhaps other museums and monuments will
undertake similar measures for preservation, as anyone who has been
jostled in the hordes at the world’s cultural landmarks knows all that
sweaty chaos can’t be good for the art.