The action is quick and painless, the result immediate and comforting under the magnificent vault of the Sistine Chapel. That veil of white that has thickened exclusively over Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, dulling the 391 figures painted by the master between 1536 and 1541, is removed with the proverbial stroke of a sponge.
Or rather, simply by brushing deionized water over the double layer of Japanese paper that is applied to the surface of the fresco by restorers and restorers at the Vatican Museums. Two minutes of waiting and, voilà, the game is done: angels and demons, damned and blessed, holy apparitions and divine figures rediscover as if by magic the hue of the paint laid by Buonarroti to give body and life to the project desired by Pope Clement VII and carried out by Paul III.
