Sistine chapel dazzles after technological makeover

High above the altar in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, the halo around Jesus Christ's head in Michelangelo's famous frescoes shines with a brighter glow, thanks to a revolutionary new lighting system.
Angels, Sybils and prophets in blues, pinks and golds, once lost in the gloom, are brought into sharp relief by 7,000 LED lamps designed specifically for the prized chapel, where red-hatted cardinals have elected new popes since the 15th century.
A state of the art ventilation system has also been installed to protect the frescoes from humidity, enabling up to 2,000 people at a time to visit one of the world's top tourist attractions, which draws over six million people a year.

The lighting venture cost some 1.9 million euros (USD 2.3 million), with 870,000 euros provided by the European Union and the rest donated to the Vatican in expertise, technology and man hours by the various companies taking part in the LED4ART project.
"The LEDs have a colour spectrum specifically designed with the pigmentation of the frescos in mind to ensure the light faithfully reflects the original colours, as the artists intended," said Marco Frascarolo, who works for Fabertechnica, one of the companies behind the new system.
"As each LED can be tuned to a different colour, we spent long nights in the chapel with the Vatican Museum curators, trying out different mixes of red, blues, whites... Trying to get it just right," he said during a private tour for journalists of the chapel yesterday.

While eight colour samples are usually taken in an environment to create a LED system, 276 areas of the Renaissance paintings were analysed, he said.
The sunlight which had streamed through the windows for centuries was shut out in the 1980s, when conservators realised ultraviolet radiation was damaging the masterpieces, causing the Last Judgement and other frescoes which cover the chapel's ceiling and walls to fade.
The lighting system put in place at the time was criticised for casting an unnatural glow and throwing some of the lesser known works by artists such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino into shadow.