The 16th century Grotto of Diana in the sumptuous gardens of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, an hour’s drive outside of Rome, is reopening to the public after 50 years of closure and two years of meticulous restoration work. Funded by iconic Roman fashion brand Fendi, restorers from the Autonomous Institute of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este (VILLÆ), who maintain the Renaissance estate and Hadrian’s country palace next to it, have brought the crumbling, darkened, moisture-damaged space back from the brink of dilapidation and literally turned the lights back on, showcasing the vivid polychrome wall and ceiling mosaics and reliefs as they were when they first enchanted the Este family in 1572.

The Villa d’Este, renown for the immense, complex terraced gardens with its iconic fountains that surround the extraordinary Late Mannerist villa, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. It was commissioned in 1560 by Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, son of Lucrezia Borgia and her third husband Alfonso I d’Este, who had spent the previous decade vying tenaciously for the papal mitre only to fail no fewer than six times. He finally gave up and decided to retire to Tivoli. He was a dedicated patron of the arts and had been deeply involved in renovations and construction of Este palaces in Ferrara, Rome, Siena and Fontainebleau. He was also the main mover and patron behind the restoration of his ancient neighbor, the Villa Adriana, the enormous country palace complex built by the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A.D.).

Ippolito hired architect Pirro Ligorio to create a magnificent chateau with a giardino delle meraviglie (garden of marvels) that would become a model for stately gardens in Europe. The gardens were embellished with many fountains, basins, waterfalls and grottos. There were jets that were triggered when visitors walked through the arcades and some of the first hydraulic automatons ever built.

Inspired by the nymphae of ancient Greece and Rome, the Grotto di Diana was added to the gardens between 1570 and 1572 by Paolo Calandrino. Located in the upper level of the garden on the Cardinal’s Walk, it has a cruciform chambered design with large caryatids on the corners of the cross vault. The central area has a niche against the wall with a faux natural rocky backdrop and a fountain. Three arms of the cross feature barrel vaulted ceilings, bas reliefs and another fountain, and he third arm leads to a loggia that looks out over the hills with a perfect view of Rome in the distance.

The interior of the grotto is decorated with polychrome mosaics made of a variety of materials — stucco, shell fragments, enamels, glass paste tesserae, glazed majolica, semi-precious stones — that create texture and movement in the reflection of light. The vaulted ceilings feature marine motifs and the wall mosaics feature scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The floors have brown terracotta tiles in the loggia, and colorful glazed terracotta tiles featuring the emblems from the Este family heraldry, including lilies, eagles and apples.

Restoration of the grotto began in 2023. VILLÆ conservators found missing pieces of the sculptures and reliefs, mortar loss, oxidized metal supports and rapidly deteriorating mosaics and tiles, eroded by moisture and wind. The restoration focused on the most conservative intervention, using authentic materials and techniques wherever possible while incorporating modern elements when necessary: a protective glass panel added to the loggia with the view of Rome, a new lighting system that underscores the nymphaeum’s extraordinary colors and textures, a new walkway for increased accessibility.

The Grotto di Diana officially reopens to the public on May 6th.

The monumental Crucifixion by Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto has returned to its former splendor after two years of restoration. The meticulous intervention rediscovered the brilliance of the colors and the rich contrasts of light and dark, and now that the scaffolding has been removed, the masterpiece is again in full public view.

A non-invasive diagnostic campaign was conducted using UV LED fluorescence and Infrared reflectography (IR) to assess the painting’s condition and study Jacopo Tintoretto’s technique. These results guided the conservators in their work to address several issues, beginning with non-original surface residues that distorted the colors and depth of the painting. The cleaning phase removed thick, yellowed varnish, glue residues, and compacted dust, as well as altered retouchings from previous treatments. During the pictorial integration phase, small losses were filled with Bologna gesso and rabbit-skin glue, then reintegrated with conservation colors, glazes, and varnishes. A protective spray varnish was applied as a final conservation step. Each phase of conservation, which lasted from March 2023 to March 2025, was meticulously documented with high-resolution photography and video.

The massive canvas, more than 16 feet high and 40 feet wide, was commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Rocco confraternity Venice in 1565, the year that Tintoretto became a member. It was the focal point of the Sala dell’Albergo, the hall where the organization’s governing officials met, covering the entire wall above the large counter where the Scuola’s governors sat.

Tintoretto’s vision for this monumental approach to the theme was incredibly complex and dynamic, centering the crucified Christ in the middle of an dense, vivid and varied crowd captured in active movement. A halo of light emanates from the crucifix, representing the salvation this act promises humanity.

The conservation not only restored Tintoretto’s original color and contrasts, but it also restored his reputation, slandered by Giorgio Vasari.

Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel, Art Historian and Member of the Chancellery of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco: “Over the course of these two years, I have had the privilege of following the work almost daily, sharing the challenges, choices, and difficulties faced by the restorers in restoring full legibility to a work that represents one of the masterpieces, if not the absolute pinnacle, of Jacopo Tintoretto. The restoration not only allowed the painting to regain a proper balance of chromatic values and great perspectival depth, but it also revealed new, essential elements for understanding the master’s working method. The discovery of a complex system of grids, drawn in charcoal and extending across the entire surface of the painting to transfer figures from the preparatory sketches to the canvas, today disproves the claim by Giorgio Vasari, who stated that Tintoretto ‘worked haphazardly and without drawing [disegno], as if he was trying to prove that art was just a jest.’”

As if it’s even remotely possible to paint a canvas of this size and intricacy without a plan. Tintoretto had preparatory drawings for individual figures and laid outlines of them on the canvas itself.

This video shows beautiful details of the restoration and the Crucifixion.

A landscape of a castle on a lake painted by Flemish Old Master Abel Grimmer (ca. 1570-1618/19) has been rediscovered in a private collection by auctioneers Woolley and Wallis. Landscape with Peasants Near a Lakeside Castle, an oil on canvas painting, has been in the present owners’ family since 1935 when it was purchased from a Brussels gallery, but they did not know who made it. They only found out that it was a rare genuine work by Abel Grimmer when they sent photos of the painting to the auction house for appraisal.

Initially working from a photograph image, paintings specialist Victor Fauvelle explained;

“Genuine works by Abel Grimmer are rare and often turn out to be copies. On first look at the photos, the composition seemed to be very typical of Abel Grimmer, but we were not hopeful that it was genuine, as works by him are very rare. In order to research it further we went to The National Art Library in the V&A in London to go through the catalogue raisonné of Abel Grimmer and his father, Jacob Grimmer (1526-1590) (who was also an artist), which was published in 1991.”

To delight of the department, the picture in question was described in detail in the catalogue raisonné and fitted the description perfectly. When the clients brought the picture in, Victor could tell immediately that it was a period work from the paint surface, which had the ‘unmistakable luminescence’ of this great period of Flemish late Renaissance painting.

Abel Grimmer was the son of landscape artist Jacob Grimmer. Art historian Giorgio Vasari considered Jacob one of the greatest landscape painters of his time. Jacob was also known for making inexpensive copies of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and his son was also strongly influenced by Bruegel. Brueghel’s The Harvesters, a series of six panels depicting people working the fields in different seasons, inspired the naturalism of the landscape and realistic poses of the people in Abel Grimmer’s landscapes.

Abel’s landscapes often depicted peasants engaged in work or leisure activities in the Flemish countryside, and the newly-rediscovered work is a fine example of his style.

Abel Grimmer was an important figure in the development of Flemish landscape painting. His atmospheric work cleverly combined detailed natural elements, often in rural settings, with an emphasis on seasonal changes, which was truly innovative for his time. A keen comprehension of light and colour gives the painting a sense of realism and depth. Abel Grimmer’s fresh approach to landscape compositions marked a transition from the Medieval, more symbolic depictions of nature, to a more observational and naturalistic approach.

The work goes under the hammer at Woolley and Wallis’ Old Masters, British & European Paintings sale on March 5th with a pre-sale estimate of £15,000-£20,000 ($19,000-$25,000).

The Santini Codex, a 15th century illustrated manuscript of machines, has been acquired by the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche and has returned to its first home, the Ducal Palace in Urbino. It is the only manuscript from the collection first amassed by the great Renaissance humanist and military leader Federico III da Montefeltro (1422-1482) to escape the looting of the library by Pope Alexander VII in 1657, the codex was welcomed back last week by the librarians of the Ducal Palace.

The manuscript has 136 pages of drawings and diagrams of military and civilian machines:

• 51 winches, cranes, column lifts, pile drivers
• 29 hydraulic pumps, mills, wells, fountains, siphons
• 23 siege and defense machines, including battering rams, catapults, movable bridges, amphibian vehicles
• 11 transport and work carts
• 9 vessels and systems for crossing waterways, including ships and moveable bridges
• 7 tools and utensils, including pliers and drills
• 4 trusses, brackets, wooden grafts
• 2 detection systems for tunnel excavations
• 1 alarm clock

The pages are made of high-quality, thick parchment with marked color differences between the flesh side and the hair side of the page. It is the only machine codex of the period that still retains its original leather binding. The quality of the craftsmanship, parchment and binding are so high that it’s likely the book was a custom creation commissioned for the ducal library, or a very expensive gift.

Its author and date have long been subject of scholarly debate. It was certainly made by someone in the circle of machine engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Thirty of the designs are copied from Martini’s Opusculum de architectura (ca. 1475), a watershed of Renaissance engineering that the author dedicated to his patron, Duke Federico da Montefeltro.

The Santini Codex entered the collection of the dukes of Urbino after 1498 and last appears listed on the inventory of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere dukes in 1632. However, in that 1632 inventory, the word “manca” (“missing”) is written next to the Santini Codex entry, which suggests the list was copied from an earlier iteration and that in 1632, the librarian checking the inventory had been unable to find the volume. How it disappeared and where it went is unknown, but it didn’t go far. The Codex was passed down by in the noble families of Pesaro and Urbino for generations until in 2024, the owners, scions of the De Pretis family of Urbino, decided to sell it.

It went under the hammer in Milan on February 27, 2024, with a hefty presale estimate of €380,000 – 450,000 ($398,000-472,000). The Ministry of Culture funded the museum’s winning bid.