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'It's pure beauty' – Italy's largest medieval mosaics restored

The mosaics in Monreale cathedral, in Sicily, span over 6,400 sq m and contain 2.2 kilos of solid gold.

The Monreale mosaics were meant to impress, humble and inspire the visitor who walked down the central nave, following the fashion of Constantinople, the capital of the surviving Roman empire in the east. The restoration lasted over a year, and in that time the cathedral was turned into a bit of a building site, with a maze of scaffolds set up on the altar and transept. Local experts from the Italian Ministry of Culture led a series of interventions, starting with the removal of a thick layer of dust that had accumulated on the mosaics over the years.

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