Learn Italian: Stavamo guardando un bell'affresco e una bella statua classica. - We were looking at a beautiful fresco and a beautiful classic statue.

Because affresco (fresco) is a singular noun that starts with a vowel. When the adjective bello comes directly before a singular noun starting with a vowel (whether masculine or feminine), it drops its final letter and takes an apostrophe, becoming bell'.

Why does bella stay normal before statua, when the masculine forms of bello change so much?

The feminine forms of bello are much simpler! It is always bella for singular feminine nouns that start with a consonant, like statua. The complicated rules for consonant clusters (like changing to bello before an 's' + consonant) only apply to masculine nouns.

What tense is stavamo guardando?

This is the past continuous, which translates to 'we were looking'. It is formed using the imperfect tense of stare (here, stavamo for 'we were') plus the gerund of the main verb (guardando). You use this to talk about an action that was ongoing or in progress in the past.

The English translation says 'looking at', but there is no word for 'at' in the Italian sentence. Why?

The Italian verb guardare inherently means 'to look at' or 'to watch'. Unlike in English, you do not need an extra preposition after it. You connect the verb directly to the object you are looking at.