As a principle I do not want to amaze with "special effects", using the pictures of the "during the restoration" phases.

But in this case I cannot avoid to show the condition of this statue, a very important

object of worship in the region of Abruzzo, Italy, as it was before the restoration.

Totally altered in terms of shapes and colors due to the many "renovations" carried out during its 700 hundreds years of life.

Yes, because this hard-to-look coarse sculpture hid an astonishing delicate 13th century one:

a play of precious pigments, metal leafs treated

by transparent glazes of lakes.

As for the black color,

the reason lays on

an accidental

fire.