Lingering Flood Damage in Florence
Giving New Life to Centuries Old Art Treasures
By Lynda Cookson
A breeze blowing off the Arno River flips my cheap umbrella inside out as I cross the Ponte Vecchio bridge, pass the lovers’ brass padlocks clinging to the railing around the statue on the bridge (the padlock keys have been flung into the muddy waters below), and squelch along to the Pitti Palace. I can see why the Medici family who ruled in Florence during the Renaissance wanted to build the corridor above the shops on the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery to the Pitti Palace … it’s a long way to walk in the winter rain or the summer heat, although I fear their intentions were more of a snooty nature than of distance and weather!
I have an appointment with Dr Ornella Casassa, Art Restorer and Curator of the Silver Museum in the Pitti Palace, and am led at speed through rooms and passages filled with paintings, frescos and antique objects. I want to yell: ‘Slow down! Slow down!’ so that I can absorb a little of their beauty as I pass. I had only been in Florence for a couple of days and my brain had not yet reached art saturation point, which it would do long before it was time to leave Florence.
Art Restoration
Dr Casassa, a tiny woman with a big twinkle in her eye, sat me down next to a vast expanse of paper-laden desk, facing three original oil portraits of the Medici family looking rather petulant, saying : ‘I chose to work with art restoration because of the big need after the great flood of 1966. My first job was to restore a most important work of art, the big cross, the “Crocifisso (Crucifix) by Cimabue” in the Church of Santa Croce, which suffered a severe loss of paint.’ She is passionate about the work she chose to do, leans forward, and the twinkle in her eye becomes intense as she tells me more about the restoration: ‘Apart from the big smell which was everywhere after the flood, the painting was severely damaged and needed cleaning and repainting where the paint had lost its colour. It was decided that the repainting should be done in a neutral manner with no attempt made to reproduce the style of the artist Cimabue. We feel that works of art are like humans who are scarred and wrinkled with life-events and time and that it is important not to try and reproduce exactly, not to try and make the painting look brand new, but to rather let it keep the character of its life. That means that where the paint has been erased forever, we do not repaint and merely clean; only where the paint still exists but has lost its colour do we restore with paint. The painting had to be removed from its support and we used a complicated and innovative technique incorporating a microscope and small soft brushes of animal fur made by “piccolo”. Special cream is applied to a very small area, a centimetre at a time, and gently massaged onto the surface with a brush until the white cream becomes discoloured with dirt. It is then wiped away and the next tiny bit is attended to. We do not work systematically along from left to right or from top to bottom but rather a bit here and a bit there, all over the painting. There is much analysis to decide which parts are to be cleaned first and in which order. We generally begin with the weakest colour and also have to decide when to leave a colour-change alone in order to keep the balance. For example, within white there may be some yellow bits which need to be left untouched. The process takes a very long time indeed.’
The last painting which Dr Casassa restored before becoming Curator was ‘The Primavera’ (Spring) by Sandro Botticelli which now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. She says cleaning this painting was extremely difficult and needed time-consuming research before the restorers were able to decide which solvents to use so that the layers of dirt could be cleaned away without penetrating the grease tempera or the wood. She says : ‘I feel the process of restoration is like a conductor getting the best from his orchestra using a combination of techniques to create a piece of art from the original creation, yet maintaining respect for the original creator and for the process of time and age.’
The Role of Art History
My second visit, on the other side of the city in the imposing Fortezza da Basso, was to Sig.‘We only know art techniques from the 14th Century and we suspect that techniques before that were very different so we have undertaken a lot of research in this regard in Italy. You see, the problem is not always just conservation but also one of the technique used in ancient paintings. The historical meaning is connected to the stylistic evaluation of the work and it is important to remember that the process of restoration is holistic and not just to beautify. There are always choices to make which can radically alter the process and if you know the history you can make a better choice. The more information you have, the less is the danger of mistake.’ During the last ten years the laboratory has been working on restoring eight paintings, but there are many more in storage awaiting their turn. It’s not been a question of insufficient money to carry out the restoration but rather a matter of researching the best methods to use. stylistic, artistic, technical, scientific and conservation angles have been studied. He says:
Sculpture
Finally, I knocked on the door of Sig. Patrizio Osticresi who co-ordinates the sculpture restoration for the Opera Santa Maria della Fiora. They have a workshop of eight restorers which I found in a side street off the Piazza Duomo, very tidy and filled with cool white men in marble, and sculpting tools. Sadly, at the time of my visit, I caught the last restorer leaving for siesta, so missed watching them work, but he allowed me in to take photographs. Part of the process of restoration is to first create a duplicate which takes the place of the original either permanently while the original resides in a more protective environment, or temporarily until the restoration is complete. A copy of the bronze ‘Paradise Door’ by Ghibertes was installed in the Baptistre in 1990 while the original is being restored, and it is due to be replaced at the end of 2006. Marble panels of the Bell Tower are also undergoing restoration and the original statues will be placed in a museum to preserve them from pollution.
The work of the restorers goes on and it’s hard to tell whether you are gazing in wonder at the original or the duplicate …
