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But thanks to a decade-long effort by the Vatican's restorers, the mask has been lifted. Michelangelo supplied the originals, but in many ways, much of the credit for today's frescoes belongs to restorers like Gianluigi Colalucci, who, together with Maurizio Rossi, Piergiorgio Bonetti and Bruno Baratti, have lovingly cleaned the chapel's walls and ceiling by hand.
The frescoes, despite their age and discoloration, were in very good condition, primarily because the artist played by the rules of the buon fresco technique.
As the day began, Michelangelo, or an assistant, mixed a batch of lime with water and a volcanic ash called pozzolana. Michelangelo then spread a day's worth of wet plaster onto the ceiling and began painting. When the lime combined with the water in the plaster and carbon dioxide in the air, it formed calcium carbonate - the basic formula for limestone. Trapped in that stony matrix were bits of pigment that lent their colors to the robust surface.
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