Renaissance masterpieces including Raphael’s famous Marriage of the Virgin have been saved from a water leak inside the Brera Pinacoteca gallery in Milan. In June a worker from the Italian Labour Union (UIL) identified the leak in the roof and claimed that resulting humidity threatened paintings including the Raphael in the world-famous gallery.

Sandrina Bandera, the superintendent responsible for the Brera Pinacoteca, said urgent action had been taken to remedy the leak. She said the Raphael was protected from any damage.

But the UIL has appealed to the Culture Minister Giancarlo Galan to intervene immediately with a special decree to redo the gallery’s roof, estimated to cost 1.4 million euros.

The Raphael masterpiece, dated 1504, depicts the marriage of Mary and Joseph and is one of the Brera gallery’s major draws. The museum houses one of the most famous collections of paintings in Italy, specialising in paintings by artists from the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy, and includes Andrea Mantova’s Dead Christ and Giovanni Belli’s Pieta.

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