Vatican restorers discover Michelangelo used multi-headed brushes

Vatican restorers discovered that Michelangelo used custom multi-headed brushes to paint The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

During a three-month restoration project in Italy, experts removed layers of calcium lactate, a salt formed from visitor sweat and wall plaster, to reveal the 16th-century murals. While cleaning the artwork, Paolo Violini, the chief restorer, noticed a unique crosshatching pattern in the paint.

He observed that parallel brushstrokes wobbled in identical ways, which indicated the artist used a single large brush with multiple heads to create synchronized lines. Analysis shows Michelangelo used at least two types of these tools, including a brush with three tips and another nearly six inches wide with 10 tips. These tools allowed the artist to replicate the techniques of a sculptor, specifically the cross-hatching pattern created by a multi-pointed chisel called a gradina.

This method helped him work faster while creating a rich interaction between the paint and light. The restoration also revealed hidden self-portraits by Michelangelo among the more than 300 figures in the mural. One portrait appears in the flayed skin held by St. Bartholomew, while a second, more subtle face is tucked into the cloak-folds of a figure representing Death.

Fabrizio Biferali, a curator at the Vatican Museums, says Michelangelo likely painted these faces after a fall from scaffolding in 1536 broke his leg and forced him to stop work for several months.