The Sistine Chapel’s masterpiece frescoes have been digitized

To prepare for future restoration projects, the Sistine Chapel’s world-famous frescoes and mosaic floor have gotten the up-close-and-personal treatment by way of an army of DSLRs. The last time the Sistine’s masterworks were documented photographically (both by Michelangelo and other artists) it was a 14-year-long job that wrapped in 1994, according to Reuters. This time out, photographers spread 65 nights of work across five years, resulting in 270,000 digital still photos.

“In the future, this will allow us to know the state of every centimeter of the chapel as it is today, in 2017,” former head of the Vatican Museums Antonio Paolucci told the publication.

“We used special post-production software to get the depth, intensity, warmth and nuance of colors to an accuracy of 99.9 percent,” fine-art book publisher Scripta Maneant’s Giorgio Aramroli said.

Speaking of, if you can’t make it to Vatican City to check the ceiling paintings for yourself, these benchmark photos will be available in book form. Reuters writes that some 220 pages are printed at 1:1 scale, including The Creation of Adam and Jesus Christ’s face from The Last Judgment.

The thing is, the three-volume work is targeted at libraries and deep-pocketed collectors. There will only be 1,999 copies printed and for the price — $ 12,693 (€12,000) — so it’ll likely be cheaper to book a trip to Rome. Ciao!

Source: Reuters

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