Italian art historians have stumbled on a stash of around 100 drawings and a few paintings by the Renaissance master Caravaggio, Italian news agency ANSA said Thursday.
The newly unearthed artworks were done by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571-1610), during his studies with mentor painter Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio began his studies under Peterzano at the age of eleven.
The paintings and sketches were found among a collection of works held at Sforza Castle in Milan, which were done by the apprentices of Peterzano. Photographs of the works which were published in the Italian media Thursday, range from preparative anatomical sketches to religious scenes, the AFP said.
"We always felt it was impossible that Caravaggio left no record, no studies in the workshop of a painter as famous as his mentor," Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz Guerrieri, artistic director for the Brescia Museum Foundation, told ANSA.
The works are estimated to be worth 700 million euros ($866 million).
