Catholic church of Saint Anastasia, Verona, Italy

This guide to the Church of Saint Anastasia in Verona follows one fresco's rough journey: Antonio Pisanello's Saint George and the Princess, painted above a side chapel sometime between 1433 and 1438, and the leaking roof that soon began ruining it. You'll hear how nineteenth-century restorers dealt with the damage, cutting the painted plaster from the wall in sections using the delicate strappo technique. It's less a story about a masterpiece finished than about what a church does when its art starts dying above the pews. Look up at the arch first, before you learn what it took to save it.