Cleaning Treasures: Safer solvents for restoring frescoes

By suspending small amounts of solvents in nanoscale droplets, chemists have found an environmentally safer method of cleaning centuries-old frescoes and saving them from the unintended consequences of previous restorations.

FACE SAVING. A detail of the Brancacci Chapel frescoes by early-15th-century Florentine master Masaccio. The frescoes were among the first to be cleansed with microemulsions.