The Vatican is not the only prestigious location to benefit from the magic touch of this small-town carpenter from Marcali in southwestern Hungary. And despite references from Hungary's own parliament, the country's biggest synagogue and the Swedish embassy here, a professional certificate is something the talented carpenter still lacks. Born to Roma parents, Rostas was abandoned in hospital and raised in a state institution, an unlikely start for an ambitious man who since childhood had wanted to become "the best restorer in the world". After thorough research in libraries and consultations with museums, Rostas cleans the parts, carves out the decaying bits and replaces them with meticulously selected and treated pieces before finally soaking the wood in an organic mordant. The painstakingly precise inlays change shade with the light, the carved banisters show rich ornamentation, and the solid structure seems immovable — although, apart from a refined system of tenon and mortise joints, a simple but strong system used for thousands of years, it is held together by one single screw. In gratitude and to leave a trace, he hid a bottle of wine and a letter in one of the banister columns.

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