Giotto's Santa Croce frescoes are receiving the final touches of a four-year restoration in Florence, with scaffolding poised to be removed ahead of an official reveal in September.
On Friday, journalists were invited onto the scaffolding that has obscured the view of the famous 14th-century frescoes adorning the walls of the Basilica of Santa Croce's Bardi Chapel.
Estimated by art historians to have been begun sometime after 1317, the frescoes are considered to be one of Giotto di Bondone's masterpieces.
The painter and architect, hailed as the father of the Italian Renaissance, is believed to have been born around 1267 in Vicchio, just north of Florence.
He was celebrated during his lifetime for introducing a new way of painting — depicting weighty, massive figures in three-dimensional space, while imparting his characters with a human expressiveness not seen before.
