Fresh Revelations

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Artists who followed in giot-to's footsteps were wowed by his ability to depict human emotions in actual settings. Leonardo da Vinci said Giotto "not only surpassed the masters of his own time, but all those of many preceding centuries." The latest restoration of Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua — revealed last week after 10 months of meticulous work — provides fresh proof of da Vinci's words.

The chapel was built by Enrico Scrovegni to atone for the crimes of his father, a notorious usurer, and in 1303 Giotto was commissioned to decorate it. He covered the interior with a fresco narrative of the lives of Jesus and his mother, adding figures of the Virtues and Vices and a Last Judgment. "Giotto was a genius," says Professor Giuseppe Basile of Rome's Central Restoration Institute, who oversaw the restoration. "He planned the location of scenes to fit the chapel's architecture precisely. He developed a form of perspective. His figures had natural movements and expressions. The stories themselves progressed at a human pace with characters well-known to viewers, repeating mystery plays that were often enacted in the streets of medieval towns." Basile's project cost nearly €2 million, derived from lottery funds, and employed 40 restorers working 18-hour days.

The Gospels don't tell us much about the Virgin Mary's life, but in Giotto's time fanciful tales from the Apocryphal Gospels — stories about Jesus and his followers that weren't admitted to the scriptures sanctioned by the Church — filled in the gaps and provided the scripts for mystery plays. Giotto's figures, like medieval actors, seem to have crowded onto a small stage to tell their story, but they behave as real people do, carrying baskets, bathing babies, exchanging significant glances.

In the seven centuries after the frescoes' completion, their jewel-box colors faded and in some places fell off, salts rose to the surface and gilding tarnished. But the chapel's masterpieces also face modern threats. Air pollution has become a serious problem. And only eight years after the last restoration, finished in 1963, it became obvious that it had done more harm than good. Neglecting to test his materials first, restorer Leonetto Tintori used synthetic resins to fix the painted layer to the plaster. As the resins aged, they hardened and the wall could no longer "breathe." Without further treatment, the painted layer was likely to fall off.

Earthquakes are another hazard, inflicting damage on the building in 1975. In 1997 a tremor caused the partial collapse of the Basilica in Assisi, 320 km to the south, reducing some of its Giotto frescoes to a jigsaw of tiny fragments. Under Professor Basile, the crumbled artworks were reassembled and reinstated in record time. This achievement made Basile a natural choice to direct the Scrovegni restorations. Like Giotto, who organized assistants into a production line preparing plaster layers, grinding colors and transferring sketches, Basile assembled his team. As well as Institute graduates, he recruited Gianluigi Colalucci, who was responsible for restoring the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, and Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, restoration overseer for Da Vinci's Last Supper.

When he started work in Padua, Basile was shocked by what he found. Some areas, such as Hell, were in terrible condition. "Much damage resulted" from Tintori's untried process, he says. "Now chemical products and new processes are tested for years before being put to use." To counter modern problems, a new entrance filters out air pollution from the main road. Ducts for air-conditioning laid under a raised floor keep the walls at an even temperature. Crowding will be avoided: though the chapel will be open seven days a week, visitors will be admitted only in groups of 25 and will spend just 15 minutes inside.

The still-beautiful colors — greens, reds and pastels against vivid blue skies — have been painstakingly cleaned with small poultices of Japanese paper impregnated with a solution of ammonium carbonate. Areas where the paint had fallen, due to humidity or previous restorations, have been filled in with fine hatching: parallel brush strokes in watercolor. The team re-covered the rusting heads of nails used in the late 19th century to anchor plaster to the wall. They removed old fixatives and fillings of unsuitable materials such as cement. They corrected previous attempts at retouching where color had altered or fallen, as it had from the sky behind Christ carrying the cross.

Much that was hidden has come to light. At the top of the Last Judgment, two angels dressed in armor roll up the heavens — and we can now see that planets surround the sun and moon. While restorer Enrichetta Capodilista was working on the Massacre of the Innocents, she noticed that five of the women, whose children are being torn from them, have dark streaks on their faces. Her colleagues thought the marks might be water stains, but after she cleaned the women's faces with cotton swabs and distilled water their significance became clear. They are the desperate tears of bereaved mothers, their children dead at their feet. When Capodilista showed Basile, he responded: "These are the first painted tears of art history."

Capodilista had already noted the great care Giotto devoted to even the finest details, such as the fair hair covering Christ's torso in the Crucifixion, the camels' whiskers in the Adoration of the Magi, the weaving of the tablecloth in the Marriage at Cana. "These details could not be seen from the ground without binoculars," she says, "but somehow you can guess they are there. Such touches are among the joys of working on Giotto, but they are also a reason to fear making a mistake." Giotto's storyboard of man's redemption is a profound religious drama as well as an art-historical landmark. Book early — and don't forget your binoculars.