Facelift at Uffizi gallery reveals 17th-century frescoes

Workers installing a newticket office and cloakroom at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence have stumbled upon hidden 17th-century frescoes and excavated a 16thcentury stable. The discoverieswere made during a substantial refurbishment of 43 unused rooms in the ground floor and basement of the gallery, which hosts works by Botticelli, Caravaggio and Titian. After digging out centuries of accumulated earth and detritus from basement rooms, workers also found amedieval-era well, together with the skeletons of three people buried on the site of a cemetery which belonged to a church whichwas incorporated into the Uffizi when it was built in the 16th century.