Mystery for 'Resurrection' fresco

(ANSA) - Sansepolcro, November 22 - Restoration work on Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca's 'Resurrection', a fresco in the civic museum of the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro where the painter was born, has revealed that the painting was originally created elsewhere and moved to its current location, Cecilia Frosinini, head of the restoration project, told ANSA on Tuesday.
    Frosinini, who directs the Mural and Fresco Conservation Department at Florence's Opificio Pietre Dure museum, said recent investigations have shown that the fresco was cut down and moved from its original location most likely sometime after Della Francesca's death in 1492, for reasons that are still unknown.
    She said the work's move was probably the first of its type in the modern age, utilizing a technique that differed from the one known by experts and used in the 16th century by Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari.
    An expert archivist is now looking at archives to try to discover where the fresco was originally painted and why it was moved, said art historian Paola Regeni of the Superintendency of Arezzo.
    Experts said given the fresco's weight, it was most likely painted not far from its current location in the Palazzo della Residenza, possibly in a different room of the same building or even a different wall in the same room.
    They said the fresco was most likely moved within the first 50 years after its creation.
    The restoration project was funded by the city of Sansepolcro and with a 100,000-euro donation from Aldo Osti, former head of pasta company Buitoni, and is scheduled to be completed by 2017.
    Restoration work by Paola Ilaria Mariotti of the Opificio and Umberto Senserini of the Superintendency of Arezzo has already brought back the vibrant colors of the painting that English writer Aldous Huxley called "the most beautiful in the world".
    The restoration also revealed that the artist used a particular mixed technique alternating fresco with areas of painting on a dry wall, which experts said Della Francesca, "a great experimenter", possibly used to create an effect closer to that of panel painting.