VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Sistine Chapel was reopened last week for the first time since the coronavirus closed in November, but for Gianni Crea, the doors to Michelangelo’s beautiful frescoes were never really closed.
Crea is the ‘clavigero’ of the Vatican Museums, the chief custodian whose work begins every morning at five o’clock, opens the doors and turns on the lights by 7 kilometers (4 1/2 miles) from one of the world’s largest collections. of art and antiquities.
The Associated Press followed Crea on the first day the museum reopened to the public and joined him before dawn in the ‘bunker’ of the lower floor, where the 2,797 keys to the Vatican treasures are kept in wall vaults overnight. While the keys hang from the giant keychains he wears around his wrist, Crea winds his way through the Gallery of Maps, past the famed marble “Laocoön and His Sons” statue and finally to the Sistine Chapel.
There, at a small wooden doorway, Crea takes a white envelope from his packing bag, tears it open, and pulls out a small silver-copper key.
Using a small flashlight to guide his way, he slips the key into the keyhole, turns it gently and cracks the door open to reveal the still darkened chapel where pauses are made during the secret ceremonies that signify their name – ‘ conclave ‘- of the important role that keys play in it. Cardinals are essentially locked up ‘with a key’ in the Sistine Chapel and the nearby Vatican Hotel for the solemn vote to elect a new pope.
As a result, the Sistine Chapel key is of particular importance and is handled with its own protocol: After the room is locked for the day when the last visitor leaves, the key is placed in a new white envelope, sealed, stamped and replaced in the vault of the bunker wall, with its arrival and passage duly recorded in a thick register book.
Crea remembers the day he finally allowed himself to open the door to the Sistine Chapel three years after his 23-year service. The privilege in the two decades since then has given him the opportunity to visit Michelangelo’s “Last Temptation” and scenes from the New Testament and Old Testament alone, in the empty silence of dawn.
“All the statues and all the rooms have a unique history, but obviously the Sistine Chapel always gives you a special emotion,” Crea said.
Although the public was closed for 88 days outside the Vatican Museums, Crea and his team of ten key custodians maintained their routine of opening and closing doors, as the exhibition spaces had to be cleaned, dusted and maintained by a small army. of museum workers. Restaurateurs took the opportunity to do maintenance work that would otherwise be impossible if the nearly 7 million annual visitors passed through the museums during a normal year.
But 2020 was anything but normal. Only about 1.3 million visitors arranged to arrange visits to Italy’s two COVID-19 closures. To maintain the social distance protocols, up to 400 people can be admitted every 30 minutes, with pre-arranged tickets online.
Crea, who confesses that he sometimes misplaces his own house keys, will make sure the doors are open for them.
“It’s a unique emotion, an incredible privilege for me and my colleagues to have the opportunity to show these extraordinary works of art, which are part of our history, to visitors from all over the world,” he said.
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Nicole Winfield contributed.
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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/coronavirus-pandemic.