Rome, July 6 (ANI): Italian art historians have claimed to have found 100 previously unknown paintings by Renaissance artist Caravaggio in the country.

According to The Telegraph, the sketches and paintings, if proved to be authentic, would be worth an estimated 700 million euros.

Experts said that after two years of rigorous analysis, they have found 'remarkable similarities' between the newly discovered works, kept in a castle in Milan, and the known works of Caravaggio.

The historians apparently managed to keep their research a secret for two years, but on Friday their findings will be published in a two-volume 600-page e-book in four languages.

The works are believed to date from Caravaggio's earliest years as a painter, when he was a young apprentice under Simone Peterzano, a mannerist painter in Milan, from 1584 to 1588.

They were found in a collection of paintings and drawings from the workshop of Peterzano, which was held in a castle in Milan.

Two years ago Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz, the artistic director of the Brescia Museum Foundation, and his co-researcher, Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli, began to scrutinise the collection in earnest.

We always felt it was impossible that Caravaggio left no record, no studies in the workshop ... of his mentor, Bernadelli Curuz said.

They compared known Caravaggio masterpieces in churches and museums with the sketches and paintings in the castle archive and found startling similarities between the two bodies of work. (ANI)