Cimabue’s Assisi fresco reconstructed The painting was believed irreparable after the 1997 Umbrian earthquake. A remarkable new computer programme has helped conservators piece it back together Posted 23 November 2005 By Edek Osser and Emma Beatty The restored St Francis Basilica ASSISI. A fresco by Cimabue, believed destroyed in the 1997 earthquake, has been partially reconstructed from thousands of fragments. It is to be reinstalled in the Basilica of St Francis next March. The restoration is the last in an extraordinary eight-year conservation project co-ordinated by the regional government of Umbria and the State-run Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome,...