At 10:00 28/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
>After everything else that has happened this year in Italy, the news that
>Giotto's murals at the Arena Chapel are also in danger is very unsettling.
>Could the sender of this sad information be more specific? What, actually, is
>the problem? What, if anything, can be done about it.? C. Thomas Ault
I copy here a message received from Italy
Carlos.
"Translated and summarized excerpts from Antonio Troiano's "Restauri
folli
nella Cappella degli Scrovegni, Giotto e' in pericolo/Padova, a rischio gli
affreschi di Giotto," Corriere della Sera, Friday, 28th Nov 1997, pp. 1, 15
'Giotto is in danger. We must save the cycle of frescoes in the
Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.' The alarm was launched by the art historian
James Beck of Columbus University. Old restorations in cement, humidity,
and now, a steel and glass structure seriously threaten the masterpieces
which the Tuscan master painted between 1304 and 1306.
What are the threats to the Scrovegni Chapel? Cement and humidity.
In Padova as at the Basilica of San Francesco ad Assisi (as F. Zeri warned)
interventions in the 1960's deprived the structure of its old equilibrium:
the original wooden tie beams were substituted with ones in metal, the old
wooden girders were substituted with ones in reinforced cement, and the
stone walls were injected with cement, all of which contributed to a
dangerous weighing down of the structure. Further, the old drainage canals
were blocked and the rain water doesn't discharge into the nearby Piovego
anymore. Instead, it infiltrates the soil, in a great quantity, under the
foundations of the Chapel, and when it rains it is necessary to pump out the
excess which gathers in the crypt. Also, no study of the terrain has ever
been done, despite the fact that lots of new offices were built nearby.
Finally, thinking to protect the frescoes from smog and the too heavy
tourist traffic, an antichamber is being constructed out of metal and glass
which not only rests physically upon the eastern wall of the chapel and
necessitates the reopening of a door closed for centuries, but it also will
act like a pneumatic hammer upon the Chapel in case of an earthquake.
Interventions continue to be undertaken in an improvised and
unscientific manner. One can't understand the role of the offices of the
'sovintendenze e del ministero dei Beni culturali,' a situation which caused
F. Zeri, in a recent interview, to say 'In Italy, art is in the hands of
stupid or corrupt people, or perhaps both.'
A great effort is needed; we must learn the lessons of disasters
like Assisi. One may not and must not use technologies and materials which
are not part of the object being restored. It is necessary to formulate
common criteria for interventions. For this, a wide international debate,
in which burocrats may not participate, is necessary. Regarding the
terrible damage in Umbria and the Marche James Beck says, 'The fear is that
the numerous interventions necessary will be conducted without competence.
It is not only the Basilica of San Francesco ad Assisi which is at risk, but
the history, civilization, and art of one of the most beautiful countries in
the world.'
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Just a note of my own: learning about the techniques of production and
preservation to the best of our ability is a necessary 'given' for the art
historian.
A very good point of reference which discusses techniques across the ages
and cultural boundaries as well as the goals and practices of modern
interventions (frankly admitting the subjective role of the restorer who
must be learned in art history, etc., as well as physical restoration)is:
P. Mora, L. Mora, and P. Philippot
CONSERVATION OF WALL PAINTINGS
London/Boston/Durban/Singapore/Sydney/Toronto/Wellington
Butterworths, 1984. (It is a translation of LA CONSERVATION DES PEINTURES
MURALES, 1983.)
Best regards,
Star Meyer
Ph.D. Candidate, Italian Renaissance Art History
Univ. of Southern California"
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