Botticelli ‘Virgin’ Back on Exhibit

FLORENCE, Italy — “The Coronation of the Virgin,” a masterpiece by the 15th-Century Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, has gone back on exhibit in Florence 50 years after it was removed for restoration.

The work, painted by Botticelli between 1488 and 1490, was returned to view Thursday for the first time since 1940 in a chapel of the city’s Uffizi Museum.

Lengthy restoration was needed after the surface of plaster and glue on which Botticelli painted started to disintegrate, restorers said.

Museum officials said the work will be moved in April to the Uffizi’s Botticelli room which contains the artist’s “Birth of Venus” and “Spring.”