A five-year restoration of a crucifix from the Florence church of Ognissanti (All Saints) is over and the newly acclaimed artefact will take its rightful place there as the work of Giotto, restorers said Thursday.

It was only during the painstaking restoration that the 14th-century work was definitively attributed to the pre-Renaissance master.

The large (467×360 cm) cross took so long to be renovated because it was in a “very poor state of repair,” lead restorers Marco Ciatti and Cecilia Frosinini said, and the supporting structure had to be “thoroughly bolstered”.