Its frescoed walls and ceiling by Michelangelo
make it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, but
the Sistine Chapel has also become a haven for pickpockets, guides have
warned, reports The Telegraph (UK) in Ucanews.Thefts in the 15th century chapel and in the adjoining Vatican Museums have led some tour guides to threaten to call a strs visit the chapel inside the Vatican each day but as they crane their necks upwards to marvel atike in protest, a month after a similar gesture by their counterparts at the Louvre.
Thousands of tourist Michelangelo's magnificent ceiling and frescoes by Botticelli and Pinturicchio, they make easy pickings for light-fingered thieves.
Visitors mesmerised by the Renaissance master's depiction of God giving life to Adam and other Biblical scenes often pay little regard to their wallets, purses and bags.
"It is very hard to control so many people and there are not enough guards," Federica D'Orazio, a tour guide, told The Daily Telegraph. "In my opinion there are just too many people – I don't think the authorities should let in so many."
Professional tour guides – some of whom have been pick-pocketed themselves – are so fed up that they are considering mounting a one-off strike to highlight the problem, just as their counterparts at the Louvre did last month.
The museum in Paris was forced to close for a day after staff staged a walkout, complaining that pickpockets, some of them children, were becoming "more aggressive" and targeting both visitors and employees.