The Uffizi Gallery used the the winter COVID shutdown to push ahead with renovations, discovering lost frescoes that will greet visitors when the leading repository of Italian Renaissance art reopens on May 4.

The first visitors of the day enter the Vatican Museums, at the Vatican, Monday, Feb. 1, 2021. The Vatican Museums reopened Monday to visitors after 88 days of shutdown following COVID-19 containment measures. While many European countries remain in hard lockdowns amid surging COVID-19 infections and variants, five more Italian regions graduated to the coveted “yellow” category of risk starting Monday. AdIn Rome, Monday's “yellow" designation meant that the Vatican Museums welcomed visitors for the first time in 88 days — its longest closure ever. In Rome, where the “yellow" designation and reopenings coincided with a hint of a spring day, residents were out taking full advantage.

This image made available on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020, shows Lucifer, one of the original 88 drawings that went with Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy by artist Federico Zuccari. Florences Uffizi Gallery is making available for viewing online 88 rarely displayed drawings of Dantes Divine Comedy to mark the 700th anniversary in 2021 of the famed Italian poets death. (Roberto Palermo/Uffizi Gallery via AP)MILAN – Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is making available for viewing online 88 rarely displayed drawings of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” to mark the 700th anniversary in 2021 of the Italian poet’s death. The drawings illustrate Dante’s masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy,” an epic poem in three parts recounting a pilgrim’s travels through hell, purgatory and heaven. They were completed during Zuccari’s stay in Spain from 1586 to 1588, and became part of the Uffizi collection in 1738.

The Uffizi museum reopened to the public after over two months of closure due to coronavirus restrictions. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)FLORENCE The Uffizi Galleries, the most-visited museum in Italy, is open after three months of COVID-19 lockdown, delighting art lovers who dont have to jostle with throngs of tourists thanks to new social distancing rules. Without being surrounded by rushing crowds, art lovers can better feel these emotions that these works of art always transmit," he said. Visitors to the highly popular Vatican Museums, which reopened two days earlier after lockdown, similarly could appreciate opportunities rarely available in the past. Instead, rank-and-file art lovers who visited the rooms of the Vatican decorated by Raphael, one of the highlights of the Museums tour before they reach the Sistine Chapel, can now admire the feminine figures.