Santa Croce's 14th-century cycle on the life of St Francis returns to former glory as Florence marks the saint's 800th anniversary.Florence's Basilica of Santa Croce has unveiled the restored fresco cycle by Giotto depicting the life of St Francis of Assisi, following four years of conservation work in the church's Bardi Chapel.  The restoration, presented to the public on 11 September, was carried out by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence's celebrated restoration workshop, on behalf of the Opera di Santa Croce, which manages the basilica. It was funded by Italy's culture ministry, the Fondazione CR Firenze, the heritage association Arpai and a number of private donors, including contributions raised through the Giving4Giotto campaign.Painted by Giotto di Bondone and his workshop sometime after 1317, the six scenes cover roughly 180 square metres and narrate pivotal episodes from the life of the Italian saint, drawn from the biography by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio: his renunciation of his father's wealth, the approval of his Rule by Pope Innocent III, an apparition at the Chapter of Arles, his trial by fire before the Sultan, his death, and a posthumous apparition to a friar and a bishop. The unveiling coincides with the eighth centenary of Francis's death.Giotto, regarded as the father of the Italian Renaissance, was born around 1267 near Florence and was celebrated in his lifetime for bringing weighty, three-dimensional figures and human expressiveness to painting in a way not previously seen. The Bardi Chapel cycle, executed in his mature years and involving several assistants working under his direction, went on to influence generations of artists. A troubled history The frescoes have had a difficult conservation history. They were whitewashed over at some point before 1730 and rediscovered only in 1851, when restorer Gaetano Bianchi removed the lime coating — a process that left scratches and losses in the paint layer, and which he then filled in using his own 19th-century interpretations. A further restoration between 1957 and 1959, led by Ugo Procacci and carried out by Leonetto Tintori, stripped away most of Bianchi's repainting, leaving roughly 5,000 gaps in the plaster toned in neutral colour. For the latest campaign, restorers replaced old synthetic fills from the Tintori restoration with mixtures of lime, sand and marble dust closer to Giotto's original materials, consolidated fragile areas, and used laser cleaning and poultices to remove old varnish and pollutant salts. Renata Pintus, who heads the Opificio's masonry department, described it as a "privilege" to work on the cycle, saying restorers sometimes felt as if they "were up on the scaffolding with Giotto". New discoveries The cleaning has thrown up fresh art-historical findings. Restorers were able to distinguish the hands of different painters working under Giotto's coordination, and confirmed that he combined true fresco technique with "dry" (a secco) additions to widen his palette and vary chromatic effects, particularly for pigments such as azurite that could not be used on wet plaster. The vault, largely obscured for decades beneath a grey layer of calcium oxalate, proved the biggest surprise, revealing new detail in the allegorical figures of the Franciscan Virtues, including Obedience and Chastity. Scientific imaging, including XRF mapping carried out with Florence's National Institute for Nuclear Physics, also recovered a lead-based image of a crucifix in the Chapter of Arles scene that had become invisible to the naked eye.Emanuela Daffra, superintendent of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, called it "a necessary and far from simple restoration", given the chapel's structural problems and highly uneven state of conservation. Irene Sanesi, president of the Opera di Santa Croce, said it was fitting that "in the eighth centenary of the death of Francis of Assisi, a work fundamental to understanding Giotto's pictorial language" was being returned to the world.Stefano Filipponi, general secretary of the Opera di Santa Croce, said visitors would now be able to appreciate Giotto's painting with far greater clarity, since modern techniques had freed the original brushwork from old varnishes and overpainting. Public holiday Next month Italy will mark the feast day of St Francis on 4 October with a public holiday for the first time since it was abolished in 1977 for economic reasons.   The date falls on a Sunday this year, meaning that workers and students won't see any tangible difference until 2027 when there will be a long weekend in honour of St Francis.   Photo Santa Croce Opera