Thursday, October 06, 2011

St. Peter's returns to the Seventeenth Century

"In thirty months, St. Peter's Square will go back to the way it was conceived, promoted and built in the second half of the seventeenth", announces L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. 

"It has already begun with Bernini's Colonnade and shortly there will be returned to Rome and to the world the color and integrity of the original immense monument in travertine." 

This is one of the greatest symbols of the Baroque age, outstanding not only on urban and architectural terms (as an area dedicated to public religious ceremonies) but also as an artistic achievement with a strong allegorical content, implying the universal Church's ecumenical embrace of all the nations.

The huge work foresees the restoration of all decorative and architectural elements of the square and involves 284 columns, 92 pillars, 140 statues, 6 papal coats of arms, 1200 metres of balustrades and crowning cornices and 3400 square meters of caissons constituting the covered soffits of the hemicycles. 

There are also the two famous twin fountains (the Clementine and Gregorian), and of course the granite Egyptian obelisk 42 meters high, erected in 1586 by Sixtus V in the center of the square.

But even the Nineteenth-century street lamps around the obelisk will be restored with the help of Acea, Italy's main electric company, as reported by Pier Carlo Cuscianna, director of technical services of the Governorate. 

The scientific, artistic, historical and monumental aspects will be undertaken by workers from the Vatican Museums directed by Antonio Paolucci, flanked by a large group of master restorers, specialist departments, research divisions from the Superintendency of Architectural Heritage of the Vatican City State.

The heads of State Accounting and the Legal Office are responsible for the task of regulating the financing of the works and its execution. 

The general restoration and related tasks have been subcontracted to the Temporary Business Association: Italian Construction and Fratelli Navarra, who by choosing a select group of companies, had offered the broadest guarantees regarding the results. 

Cuscianna emphasizes that the most significant impetus to the initiative came from the presidency of the Governorate, that "kept the helm steady in these turbulent times of economic and financial unrest," in "guiding and in putting together this long and arduous interdisciplinary undertaking."

This remarkable technical, organizational and financial commitment "achieved thanks to generous sponsors", Cuscianna underlined, "will last about two and a half years and will involve the most articulate heads of the Governorate of Vatican City," whose experts for the general plan were hired by the same heads of Technical Services, along with all the engineers and architects involved in the specific areas of surveying, planning and executing the work." 

They have already begun removing some of the scaffolding used for the restoration of the colonnade and in a short time there will be unveiled the first stretch of the left-hemicycle, the Holy See's newspaper affirms. 

Meanwhile, new scaffolding is being put up for the restoration of the areas immediately adjacent, consisting, as is known, of four rows, each composed of four columns topped by as many statues."

This will be followed by the completion of the left hemicycle up to the hinge point constituted by the Carlo Magno wing. In addition, the facade of the Vatican Basilica will be restored to its original white, as Gian Lorenzo Bernini had wanted it in the 1600s. 

St. Peter's Square, a symbol of Christianity, will change color: the yellow ocher plaster from the time of King Umberto will go. 

The corridors of Charlemagne and Constantine, the arms that connect the Basilica to the Colonnade, will shine in their original white travertine, as foreseen in the original plans signed by Bernini and found by the heads of the Vatican Museums and the Governorate.

For the technicians in charge of the restoration (from Italian Construction, in Rome) it was enough to conduct a stratigraphical survey with a micro-sandblaster on a small portion of the Charlemagne wing to discover what Bernini wrote. 

And behold, beneath the yellow ocher, the white surface of the travertine emerges, covered with "glue soup", a mixture of lime, black ivory, crushed yellow earthenware and pozzolanic (volcanic) ash,  already in use at the time of Bernini. 

"A sensational discovery, returning to this Seventeenth-century white," the head of the restorers, Fabio Porzio of Navarre Brothers/Italian Construction explained. 

"St. Peter's Square will never be the same in our eyes. The glare of the light will change the prospective colors. Some structures will seem closer, others farther away.”

“But above all, it will allow the arms to appear in harmony with the Basilica and the Colonnade."

The restoration work, which will be completed in 2015, will also affect all 140 statues and all 244 columns of the square.

To carry out this work, an innovative solution was designed, at a level fitting for the magnitude of the job: a mobile worksite will move like a small train car on rails placed above the colonnade, throughout the whole period of restoration, in an attempt to obstruct the view  as little as possible for the square's admirers.