NONFICTION - Jan. 13, 1991

ANATOMY OF A RESTORATION: The Brancacci Chapel by Ken Shulman (Walker: $24.95; 246 pp.). When we troop into the churches and museums of Italy to look at the paintings, murals and frescoes, what we often see is the artist’s work filtered through a haze of dirt and the well-meaning work of centuries of restorers, many of whom added their own layers of materials (in the case of frescoes, beverone, an egg-or animal-glue mixture meant to restore fading colors). In the past 40 years, restorers led by Umberto Baldini have been working not to add to the treasures of the past but to subtract the filth, as well as the chemical reactive agents that are destroying the works of art. Ken Shulman’s dense, informative study of the restoration of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine (on the south side of the Arno) should be of enormous interest to those aware that the chapel contains some of the seminal works of the Renaissance. Even those with a more casual interest in art, however, will be fascinated by the story of the workers who are preserving our artistic heritage.