A team of artistic 'spidermen' started combing Florence's famed duomo Monday, feeling their way across its surface to see what's in need of repair.
Over the next two weeks their hands will cover the equivalent of four soccer pitches as they caress the cathedral's venerable marble from top to bottom, looking for cracks and crevices.
They'll lean out from sky-high cranes to touch the tip of Brunelleschi's famous dome and bell-tower and let themselves down on ropes to get at the duomo's least accessible spots.
Even the slightest blemish will be noted down as the 15 art restorers - some of them professional sculptors - use their trained fingers and eyes to decide what needs to be done to keep the 15th-century monument and its facing baptistery in the best of shape.
The spidermen are only in their 30s and 40s but some of them boast 20 years of experience in art restoration.
They're even capable of sculpting replacement parts if any bits of the cathedral prove to have gone missing since the last annual surface check.
