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VATICAN CITY -- A "drunken herd" of "unruly" tourists is damaging Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel paintings, one of Italy's leading arts figures claimed as the pope prepared to mark the 500th anniversary of the iconic frescoes’ creation.

Some 5 million people visit the chapel every year – sometimes as many as 20,000 in a single day -- and an increasing number of experts are now arguing that mass tourism is damaging the paintings.

Despite a major, 14-year-long restoration project in the 1990s, they claim that the breath, sweat, dust and pollution brought in by visitors dramatically changes the Chapel’s humidity and temperature – factors to which frescoes are particularly sensitive.