At the opening of a new museum in the picturesque Italian town of San Severino Marche, the guests of honour did not dress up. They were firemen in gear worn when they rescued artworks damaged in earthquakes in 2016 and now restored and on display. The three main quakes, which hit central Italy between Aug. 24 and Oct. 30, 2016, killed more than 300 people and caused extensive destruction to homes, churches and museums.

Six years on, some of the recovered art has found a permanent home. Other pieces are waiting to go back to their rebuilt churches or be relocated. In the Archdiocese of Camerino and San Severino Marche in the Marche region, 1,970 works of art were damaged, about half of them seriously. In bordering Umbria, thousands more were damaged when small churches and large basilicas crumbled.