First volume in the new series The Science of Art, edited by the Scientific Research Laboratories of the Vatican Museums and dedicated to the research carried out on works of art in the Pope's Museums which accompanies every research intervention.

Available in Italian and English, the volume presents the results of an important diagnostic campaign performed on the Deposition by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, conserved in the Vatican Picture Gallery.

The research is based on innovative multi-spectral techniques which enabled the analysis of the work from the surface through to its deepest structure: induced ultraviolet fluorescence, false-colour infrared, infrared reflectography, radiography and X-ray fluorescence for the study of pigments. The results are illustrated in an organic and rigorous fashion, but with a practical language accessible also to non-experts.

Of particular interest are some of the details of the painting, invisible to the naked eye, that emerged as a result of the research: iconographic elements such as the entrance to the tomb, Christ's hair, the fig plant; corrections to colour and volumes; and gaps and reworkings.

The illustrations consist of numerous photographic recompositions, visible light and infrared images, microphotographs, diagrams and graphics.