The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration

Completed earlier this year, the lengthy and painstaking restoration of Michelangelo's 16th-century frescoes in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel removed layers of soot, varnish and grime, revealing his hidden intents, clarity of form and harmonious color schemes. Featuring nearly 300 color photographs by Takashi Okamura, this impressive album documents the restored ceiling and wall frescoes--depicting biblical scenes, the prophets and sibyls and the Last Judgment --in all their primordial force. Specialized, academic essays by 10 Italian, British and American art historians, curators and restorers investigate the construction of the Chapel over a medieval building on the same site, Michelangelo's preparatory drawings, his use of color, the sources of imagery for the costumes worn by the Ancestors of Christ, etc. Hirst is professor of art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. (June)