Gianluigi Colalucci’s fourteen-year restoration stripped centuries of soot from Michelangelo’s ceiling, funded by a Japanese broadcaster’s exclusive photo rights, and critics still argue it removed the artist’s own finishing touches.
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The mountain Michelangelo mined: Carrara marble, quarried since Rome
Carrara’s quarries have supplied marble since Roman Luni and Michelangelo’s own quarrying trips; today diamond wire has replaced dynamite, but marble dust and mountain damage still divide the town that lives off the stone.