Before and after
One of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance, the cycle of wall paintings by Filippo Lippi in the main chapel of the Duomo of Prato (which, according to Vasari, constitutes “the most excellent of all his works”), with the completion of long conservation and restoration work (begun in 2001), returns to thrill visitors with its harmony of colors and the equilibrium of its complex scenes, recovering lightness and volume to the figures and transparence (view images) and luminosity to the colors ( view images).

The restoration, completely financed by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage (with contributions from the Province of Prato and the Diocese of Prato) and directed by the Offices of the Superintendents of Historic, Artistic and Ethno anthropological Patrimony and of Architecture and Landscape for the Provinces of Florence, Pistoia and Prato was developed after an extensive series of preventative analyses, study of the condition of the walls, and a technical survey of the original painting technique used by Filippo Lippi.

The artist, upon a base painted a buon fresco (directly on the wet plaster ), added details and corrections a secco (painting on the dry plaster), as well as entire groups of figures (view images), all of which, for the most part, is now lost due to climactic problems and previous cleaning interventions. Numerous borders in gilded wax that had originally enriched the vestments, headdresses and halos are also now reduced to dark lines (view images).. Despite the number of irreparable losses and alterations that emerged following the very cautious cleaning of the paintings, the conservation restores continuity and harmony to the scenes using simple reintegration with washes and chromatic selection (view images) (view images) (view images).


The entire unity of the Stories of Saint Stephen and of Saint John the Baptist was recovered with its complex and powerful scenes, orchestrated like grand theatre with expansive spaces of open perspective, with a special relationship between the figures and their context, pointing to a fluid continuity of the narrative. The monumental character of the figures does not affect their lightness, thanks to the fluid and luminous brushstrokes and to the vaporous nature of the drapery (view images). Every individual character is strongly developed, coming often from actual portraits (such as those of Pope Pius II and of other dignitaries view images). Fra Filippo, a monk of independent and unconventional spirit, gifted with impulsive nature, and, at times, uncontrollable passion, reveals in these stories a profound knowledge of human nature and a remarkable expressive energy, gives back in this cycle of wall paintings in Prato a complex representation of the feelings of humanity living and breathing, vulgar and refined, saint and sinner (view images).