• The man
• The artist
• The restorer

From art to restoration, from restoration to art.

Leonetto Tintori was born on November 8th in Prato.
Of humble origins, after carrying outmany jobs he started attending, in his free time, the “Scuola d'Arte e Mestieri Leonardo” in Prato. At that time he knew Elena, his future wife and lifetime artistic and restoration partner.
He started his artistic activity as a self-taught housepainter and interior decorator, but he kept studying painting by hanging around with someFlorentine artists of that time: Soffici, Rosai, etc.
Along with other Pratese artists (Oscar Gallo, Quinto Martini, Gino Brogi, Elena Berruti and, later, also Arrigo Del Rigo and Giulio Pierucci)played a lead role in the group known as the “Prato school”.

In the middle of 30s his research activity firmly moved towards the traditional technique of fresco making; at the same time he started his restoration activity. In the 30 post-war years he played a starring role in most of the great Medieval and Renaissance cycles' restorations and acted as an authoritative interlocutor for the major Italian and International institutions. Tintori, remembering In his autobiography, Tintori said, remembering his first charge as the restorator of Prato's Dome vaults:

"I practiced by making full-sized copies of Filippo Lippi's frescoes while completing the vaults' 'challenge': it was primarily a technical research, but I was also unconsciously assimilating the artistic and expressive meaning. Later, I pursued this sort of distant world's recognition by means of reliefs and researches until the extreme effort of learning to think and work with some old friends".

Even while restoration works were taking up most of his time, Leonetto Tintori also succeeded in finding time for his art. Tintori the artist greatly influenced Tintori the restorator, while Tintori the restorator gave him in returnthe unique and unsurpassable experience that can only be attributed to his career.

He quit restoration at the end of 70s; at that time he started planning the foundation ofa fresco school-workshop where theory and practice could be combined, just like in the medieval ”bottega”. He devoted all his professional, personal and econonomic resources to his school. "What is taught at the Vainella laboratory is not simply the art of restoration, but rather how to use technique as a form of artistic expression".