When a 1944 bombing raid demolished the extraordinary 1448–57 frescoes by Andrea Mantegna in the Capella Overtari in the Chiesa degli Eremitani, the loss to art history was incalculable. After half a century of painstaking reconstruction, the shattered, humidity-damaged stories of Saints James and Christopher have been puzzled together, revealing action-packed compositions and extreme perspectives that make Mantegna’s saints look like superheroes.
