Michelangelo’s luminous frescoes have been photographed in forensic detail for the first time and the result is a stunning series of books
There are many privileges to being an arts journalist, but the far-and-away high point, for me, was the chance to spend an entire afternoon almost solo in the Sistine Chapel, gazing at Michelangelo’s masterpiece.
The year was 2010, Pope Benedict was about to make a state visit to Britain, and to mark the event the Vatican offered to loan Raphael’s tapestries to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they could hang alongside the cartoons from which they were made. But before putting them on the plane to London, the Vatican Museums decided, as a curtain-raiser, to exhibit the tapestries briefly in the very place for which they were originally created, the walls of the Sistine Chapel. It was quite a low-key event, but they did invite a few journalists along; which is how, for three sublime hours, I got the Sistine Chapel virtually to myself.
Since then I’ve been back to the chapel several times, but I wouldn’t really mind if I never went there again because experiencing it empty was such a thrilling and moving experience. It was in a whole different league from the bunfight atmosphere of the chapel on a normal (non-Covid) day when you’re likely to be sharing the space with up to 2,000 others (around 25,000 people traipse through each day). It’s crowded, claustrophobic and hurried, with tour guides ushering you out after about 10 minutes. Ten minutes! This is the greatest artistic feast of the Western world: 10 minutes isn’t even an amuse-bouche.