Crime-solving techniques may have solved centuries-old art mystery

Crime-solving techniques applied to a medieval illuminated manuscript in Paris may have solved a centuries-old puzzle - the true identity of a leading Byzantine painter who injected humanity into the rigid sanctity of Orthodox religious art.

A contemporary of Giotto, considered the father of Western painting, the artist conventionally known as Manuel Panselinos was equally influential in a totally different tradition that's largely overlooked in the West.

But nothing is known of his life, and scholars now believe Panselinos was just a nickname that eventually supplanted the real name of the man for whom it was coined - likely Ioannis Astrapas, from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.