The royal funerary regalia of rulers of Poland and Lithuania has been discovered in the underground vaults of Vilnius Cathedral in Lithuania. The regalia includes three funeral crowns, a scepter, an orb, rings, chains and coffin plaques that were secreted in a niche in the wall of the crypt shortly after the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

They were originally placed in the coffins of Alexander Jagiellon (1461-1506), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Elizabeth of Habsburg (1526–1545), the first wife of Sigismund II Augustus (1520-1572), and his second wife Barbara Radziwiłł (1520/23-1551). In 1931, the burial crypts were exposed during work after a flood that damaged the cathedral. The coffins of the three royals and the royal regalia they contained were salvaged.

When World War II broke out eight years later, Vilnius Cathedral was at risk of being closed, so the Cathedral Chapter set to hiding the church’s wealth before it was targeted by marauders. The treasury was walled up in a niche in one of the staircases. The funerary regalia was hidden somewhere in the vaults, but obviously neither location was documented as that would have defeated the purpose of, you know, hiding them.

The treasury was rediscovered in 1985, but the regalia took a little more work. The Vilnius Archdiocese engaged specialists to search for the spot using non-invasive methods — georadar, thermal imaging, metal detectors — and testimony from a witness present when the regalia was hidden, but came up empty. In 2023, they planned to use a 3D scanner to create a detailed map of the vaults, but unfortunately the funding fell through. Finally, on December 16, 2024, an endoscopic camera was threaded through pre-existing cracks and holes in the walls. After several failed attempts, the camera finally spied the long-lost royal funerary regalia. The wall was dismantled and the objects removed so they could be documented, catalogued and moved to safety.

“I am grateful to everyone who willingly participated in this search, and I am sincerely glad that these valuables were finally discovered thanks to the cooperation of several institutions. Now they will be studied, restored and presented to the public in the future. The discovered burial signs of the rulers of Lithuania and Poland are priceless historical values, symbols of the long-standing traditions of Lithuanian statehood, signs of Vilnius as the capital, and remarkable works of jewelry,” the archbishop noted.

An electrician doing maintenance work in the 16th century Villa Farnesina in Rome uncovered frescoes in vivid color hidden behind a later vaulted ceiling. Electrician Davide Renzoni was on top of high scaffolding when he spotted a trap door in the barrel vaulting that had been added to the living room of the villa in the 19th century. The door opened onto a cavity between the newer ceiling and the original one. Shining a light in the darkness, Renzoni was greeted by a profusion of cherubs against blue skies and rolling hills.

Built for papal banker Agostino Chigi between 1506 and 1510, the Farnesina was an innovative design, a suburban villa on the banks of the Tiber with a u-shaped floorplan and open loggias stood. It is best known today for its exquisite frescoes on mythological subjects by High Renaissance luminary Raphael and other greats including Sebastiano del Piombo, Giulio Romano, Bladassare Peruzzi and Il Sodoma. Cardinal Alessandro Farnese acquired the villa in 1579 and the newly-discovered frescoes date to the Farnese era.

That is evident in the newly-discovered frescoes. There are three surviving areas: one lunette featuring a large standing cherub holding a plumed helmet in front of rolling hills with a tower and manor house in the mid-ground, two cherubs on blue backgrounds in the corbels, and in the center of the barrel vault, a sky filled with cherubs flying around the Farnese coat of arms. They were commissioned by Abbot Giuseppe Melchiorri who rented the villa from the Farnese Duke of Parma. His lease contract enjoined him from making any unauthorized alterations to the building, but his inventory records indicate he did order paintings for at least one gallery.

Between 1861 and 1863 major restoration work was carried out on the Villa Farnesina, particularly on the first floor, which had been radically altered from the 16th-century configuration designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi for Agostino Chigi. Architect Antonio Sarti found serious structural damage due to the load on the walls above the vaults and proposed consolidation works. The main hall was divided into two parts, distorting the original spatiality and adding new service rooms, including an elevator shaft.

The discovery of the frescoes, which were spared by the insertion of the elevator, constitutes a significant novelty for the knowledge of the building and its seventeenth-century decorative phase, obtained as part of the conservation and restoration activities carried out by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in collaboration with the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

Renzoni found the frescoes last year but the discovery was kept under wraps while conservators and researchers restored and studied them. Because they are in an inaccessible area, the frescoes cannot be exposed to the visiting public, but the Villa has found a way to virtually feature them in its new exhibition about the 17th century Villa Farnesina. High-resolution photographs and 3D reconstructions will showcase the frescoes and display what the living room looked like at various times.

An engraving by Albrecht Dürer rescued from a landfill by an 11-year-old antique hunter has sold at auction for £33,390 ($44,800), twice the presale estimate of £10,000 to £20,000 ($13,000 – $26,000).

Knight, Death and the Devil was engraved by Nuremberg printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1513. Dürer named it Reuter (Rider) and it is an allegory of moral virtue as symbolized by the “Christian Knight” who rides steadily past Death on a pale horse holding an hourglass, and a multi-horned, toothy-snouted devil holding a billhook. Amidst a dark, creepy landscape, the knight looks steadfastly forward, allowing Death and Devil no dominion as he proceeds on his quest with his equally steady equine and canine companions.

It was one of three large prints known as the Meisterstiche (master engravings) made by Dürer in 1513 and 1514 that each represent one of the three virtuous spheres of Medieval philosophy. The Reuter represents the moral sphere and the “active life.” Saint Jerome in His Study represents the theological sphere and the “contemplative life.” Melencolia I represents the intellectual sphere. The Meisterstiche prints were enormously influential, the subject of thousands of pages of art historical analysis and the inspiration of many artists.

The print was spotted by the keen eye of the young Matt Winter from Branbrook, Kent, who at 11 years old had already been regularly rummaging for antiques in the local dump for a year. One lucky day, he spotted a woman with a trunk full of things she was about to trash, the Dürer among them. It caught his eye and he asked the lady if he could have it. She was glad someone wanted it and happily let Matt take it.

He put with his growing collection of dumpster-dived antiques and kept it for 13 years. Earlier this year, Matt Winter decided to get it appraised and sent it to Rare Book Auctions, a Staffordshire auction house, for assessment. Jim Spencer, director of Rare Book Auctions, didn’t expect the print to be anything more than a later copy. Dürer’s work was hugely famous in his lifetime and has been copied pretty much non-stop for 500 years. As an expert and appraiser, Spencer has seen many, many copies pass through his hands, but the only originals printed by Dürer himself he’d ever seen were in museums.

As soon as he opened the package, he realized this was something else. He held the print up to the light and recognized the laid paper as the exact type used in Dürer’s time. The quality of the engraving was so superior, the details so meticulously rendered, that he thought it might be an original print. Jim Spencer and his brother and colleague Matty took the print to London where they compared it to the three original examples in the British Museum collection.

“It was the school holidays, so the British Museum was packed with tourists. We could barely move inside. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life to be granted access to the solitude of the Prints & Drawings Study Room where other Dürer engravings in the museum’s collections were carefully laid out for me and Matty to see.

“A research fellow from the United States assisted us with viewing the engravings and comparing their examples with ours. With a magnifying glass, we were able to check that every minuscule line matched perfectly. It confirmed what we had thought and hoped. This was indeed the real deal.

“The research fellow shared a number of academic journals discussing the engraving, Knight, Death and the Devil. One of the most important points related to an incredibly faint scratch across the head of the knight’s steed, which would’ve been accidentally swiped across the surface of the copper plate prior to printing, and would’ve been almost imperceptible. I checked our example and the scratch was present. It disappears on later printings, so this sealed it. It was period and authentic.”

The only downside was that the print was glued to a backing in around 1900, which cut its market value down from $260,000 or so, but even unfortunately mounted it is undeniably the score of a lifetime for the dumpster-diving child history nerd in us all.

Knight, Death and the Devil was purchased by a private collector in Germany, so it will be returning to its homeland.