Sistine Chapel ceiling particular pentimenti, highlights and shadows, and other detailing painted "a secco" – was lost in the removal of various accretions. Vasari Johann Wolfgang Goethe Waldemar Januszczak The art critic and television producer Waldemar Januszczak wrote that when the Sistine Chapel ceiling was recently cleaned, he "was able to persuade the man at the Vatican who was in charge of Japanese TV access to let me climb the scaffold while the cleaning was in progress." Gabriele Bartz and Eberhard König Pope John Paul II Sistine Chapel ceiling The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone
Sistine Chapel exterior can be seen only from nearby windows and light-wells in the palace. Subsidence and cracking of masonry such as must also have affected the Cappella Maggiore has necessitated the building of very large buttresses to brace the exterior walls. The accretion of other buildings has further altered the exterior appearance of the Chapel. The building is divided into three stories of which the lowest is a very tall basement level with several utilitarian windows and a doorway giving onto the exterior court. Internally, the basement is robustly vaulted to support the chapel. Above is the main space, the Sistine