I suspect most of us are aware that European churches reflect in their architecture the different periods of their construction. Somehow though, I had made the incorrect assumption that once a section of a church was done, the section was always maintained as it was originally designed. A cathedral might have a chapel in both a Gothic and Renaissance style but that was how they were built and always maintained. I learned in Valencia that churches often renovate their chapels in to the popular style of the time.

Normally, when a chapel is renovated the frescos or painting that adorn its walls are lost for ever.

The Recovery of a Hidden Treasure
If it had not been for a pigeon, they may have been lost for ever
Hearing a noise within a wall of the Cathedral, staff call in experts to explore what appeared to be a void behind the wall and the baroque dome of a chapel. Lowering a camera in to a pigeon hole everyone is astonished to discover hidden with in the wall are exceptional renaissance frescos.

Photo Above - one small section of a 15th century fresco peers out from the construction zone.

How the renaissance frescos ended up with in the ceiling is somewhat of a mystery. What is known is that the frescos were completed in 1481 by Francisco Pagano and Pablo de San Leocadio but church officials were not pleased with them, and refused to pay for them. Historically, the practice for adding a new ceiling was to simple plaster over the existing work, effectively destroying the older art in the process. We must assume someone just could not bare to see the renaissance frescos destroyed forever. Instead of preparing the wall and ceiling to be re plastered a 17th century worker constructed a new, baroque wall and ceiling preserving the 15th century frescos intact.