Rome abounds with viral selfie spots. The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel is not one of them. Photography of any sort is banned beneath Michelangelo’s fresco.

But that didn’t stop famed homemaker and art lover Martha Stewart from snapping a few pictures during her family’s Thanksgiving trip to the Italian capital. When Stewart posted her photographs to Instagram this week, though, fans cried foul. (For the record, she used her freewheeling Finsta, @MarthaStewart48, rather than her buttoned-up official account.)

“Just a few iPhone photos of what we saw during our quiet hour in the Sistine chapel !” Stewart captioned her carousel of 14 photos (one of them comically out of focus). “I love the painting and the biblical history that is portrayed in the Chapel This should definitely be on your bucket list.”

 

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Two days later, the post has garnered 28,000 likes. Across nearly 600 comments, fans share well wishes and love for Stewart’s “bucket list” site. Some even ask whether Stewart kissed any men there, referencing an iconic art-related anecdote from her recent documentary.

But most of the comments, particularly the most-liked ones, wondered why Stewart didn’t get tackled by guards.

“My husband and I were there a few weeks ago and all tourists were told we were not allowed to take photos,” reads the top comment. “I love Martha but this is a prime example of the privileged and wealthy having special treatment.”

“It is not a special privilege we made a donation for the treatment we received,” Stewart replied a day later. She and her family paid for a private 6:30 a.m. tour.

Dozens of comments echoed the sentiment, though, with varying levels of indignation. Stewart responded to one other comment, which read, “The rules of NO PICTURES should apply to everyone. Those flashes can ruin the paintings. Please abide by the rules so the next generation can see it too.” In return, Stewart replied, “we used no flashes Just our Apple iPhone 16 plus max very good camera.”

Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment fresco in Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome. Photo: VCG Wilson / Corbis via Getty Images.

While flash photography can damage pigments in old frescoes like the Sistine Chapel’s, all photos have been banned here since 1980. It’s kind of a funny story how that came to be.

Five decades ago, the Vatican set out on a controversial restoration to brighten the Sistine Chapel by removing all the glue applied to it by both Michelangelo and later restorers—and sought outside entities to cover the costs. In exchange, the Vatican offered exclusive rights to images of Michelangelo’s artwork. Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) of Japan outbid the competition, offering $3 million towards the restoration, which grew to $4.2 million as the scale of work required became clear.

Those efforts began in 1980, and NTV won over critics of the deal by carrying out unprecedented documentation of the chapel. They even contracted Japanese photographer Takashi Okamura to capture the restoration in action. Although NTV did institute a photo ban, that ban reportedly applied only to professional photographers, not ordinary tourists. It was the Vatican that applied the policy to all visitors.

NTV’s copyright concluded by the turn of the millennium, but the Vatican never repealed the rule, presumably to protect the art and preserve the sanctity of the space. Officials, however, are notoriously spotty about enforcing the policy. Stewart’s private photo session is a reminder that sometimes society can be mad at the wrong rich people—and that haters have nothing on her.