The Day of Judgment is nigh.
After nearly four years of cleaning, Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel is nearly restored.By April, when the scaffolding comes down, all his Sistine Chapel frescoes will be visible again for the first time since a multimillion-dollar restoration scheme began 14 years ago.
The "Last Judgment," which the Renaissance art historian Vasari called "that great painting sent by God to men on earth," was the final part of the chapel to be cleaned.
It was also the most challenging and controversial.
"It was a continuous discovery. This was much more complex compared to the ceiling," said Giancarlo Colalucci, chief restorer of one of the world's great art treasures.
It was Colalucci's hand that touched God's life-giving finger in the ceiling's famous "Creation" scene and the stern face of Christ in the "Last Judgment," but he speaks matter-of-factly of his work.
"We found many places where Michelangelo corrected himself. He would paint something one way and then change his mind and alter it," Colalucci said, permitting a close-up look at the restored work from the scaffolding.
"Perhaps as he became older he became more of a perfectionist."
By next Easter, 486 years after Michelangelo began painting the chapel where popes are elected, it will re-emerge with all the brilliance it had in 1541 when he replied to impatient pontiffs who had taunted him over the years: "It is finished."
During the 14 years since Colalucci began cleaning the ceiling, he developed his own internal guidance system - a marriage of intimate knowledge of Michelangelo and modern restoration techniques.
The "Last Judgment" - which Colalucci began cleaning in 1990 after 10 years' work on the ceiling - is a dizzying swirl of 336 figures depicting the Renaissance master's fearsome vision of humankind's final moments.
A timid Madonna turns away from a vengeful Christ as he judges the living and the dead. Saints float to paradise welcomed by trumpeting angels while the damned tumble into the fires of hell, where hungry serpents await them.
The 1,720-square-foot wall is awe-inspiring and the difference between the cleaned frescoes and those yet to be restored is breathtaking.
The frescoes have been restored to their original colors - liberated from centuries of grime, dirt, smoke stains and the blunders of earlier would-be restorers.
The sky, which for years had taken on the color of a polluted lake, has been restored to the original dazzling blue that Michelangelo achieved with lapis lazuli, a stone that was the most expensive blue pigment available in his time.
The overall result of the restoration is a riotous assault on the senses.
Because the "Last Judgment" wall was more accessible to restorers than the 69-foot-high ceiling, it suffered from more tampering and was a greater challenge for Cola-lucci.