Il segreto sotto l'affresco

The scaffolding was cold beneath her knees of Marta, as always in the churches of the countryside.

She had been working for six weeks on that fresco, attributed to a painter minor of the sixteenth century, but considered by the heritage authority a treasure national.

That morning, while she was removing with a scalpel a layer of varnish oxidised in the corner bottom bottom to the right, she noticed something that should not have been there: a layer of gypsum artificial, not compatible with the techniques of the sixteenth century.

She stayed still with the scalpel suspended a half centimetre from the surface.

Perhaps it was a restoration ancient, she told herself. Perhaps someone had already intervened centuries ago. But she took a sample and sent it sent to the laboratory of a friend chemist at Bologna.

The results arrived in ten days. The binder contained resins synthetic not existing before the twentieth century. The fresco was a forgery.

Marta sat sitting on the scaffolding until the sunset. The parish priest was old and loved that fresco like a relic. The town council had invested funds European in that restoration. A museum was negotiating to acquire it.

She thought about how much would be easier simpler not to have sent that sample.

The day after she called the heritage authority. The official who her answered went quiet silent for a long moment, then said: «Marta, are you absolutely certain of what you are saying saying? »

Marta looked at the report from the laboratory open on the table in front of her her. «Yes. »

The consequences were exactly those that she had imagined: investigations, accusations, sleepless nights sleepless, the name of the priest in the papers. It was discovered that the forgery had been commissioned by a from a bishop in the years nineteen-fifties, when the original had been lost during the war during the war.

Marta did not regret her her choice. But every time that she drove past past the that church she slowed down, looking at the wall outside as though if she could still see through the stone that layer of gypsum that had changed everything.