MachineMachine /stream

Restoration experts have used ultra violet rays to shine an astonishing new light on the work of one of the most important painters in the history of Western art.

The paintings of Giotto di Bondone in the Peruzzi Chapel in Florence's Santa Croce church are considered among the most important by the medieval artist who introduced a revolutionary emotional depth and degree of perspective in his painting.

The Peruzzi chapel, with its murals honouring John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, is thought to have inspired great painters in the Renaissance a century after Giotto's death in 1337. But neglected for hundreds of years, and encrusted with dust and crime, it is only now that some of the finest details have been seen again.

The ambitious "non-invasive diagnostics" project designed to assess the condition of the 12-metre-high chapel, which Giotto painted in about 1320, began last year. By chance restorers working on the three-storey steel scaffolding noted that when ultra-violet l