The 14,000-ton, five-century-old dome of St. Peter’s Basilica will debut new lighting this coming Easter to further enhance Michelangelo’s magnificent work.

According to Vatican News, the new state-of-the-art lighting will ensure more intense and well-distributed light that “will further enhance the dome and create a striking atmosphere.”

The maintenance and improvement project for the lighting systems is already being carried out by the Fabric of St. Peter, the entity that manages all the works necessary to preserve and enhance the basilica and its artistic structures.

Experts are putting the dome’s drum, the structure that serves as its base, through various functionality and light intensity tests.

In addition, technical operations are being carried out during the night to check the light intensity, which will also be more calibrated and better distributed.

These changes, which will be unveiled on Easter Sunday, April 20, will allow tourists and pilgrims to appreciate even more one of the most famous domes in the world.

Michelangelo’s great Renaissance dome was built to house the remains of St. Peter. In fact, as Vatican expert Javier Martínez-Brocal explains in his Spanish-language book “The Vatican as It Has Never Been Told to You,” if a fishing line with a lead weight at the end were dropped from the central point of the cupola, “it would rest right above the tomb of the fisherman of Galilee.”

The height of the dome is 120 meters (almost 400 feet) from the floor of the basilica to the roof of the cupola, and pilgrims who wish to get to the top of the dome can reach it by climbing its 537 steps.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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