Italian art restorer denies damaging medieval frescoes

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/feb/19/italian-art-medieval-frescoes-damage

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A leading Italian art restorer has denied his team has permanently damaged a series of medieval frescoes by Giotto and other artists.

Sergio Fusetti, lead restorer at the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, said claims by an expert reported in the Italian press over damage to the frescoes were completely unfounded.

“The problem doesn’t exist. We carry out regular checks and maintenance, taking off the hard dust that’s been deposited on the frescoes. We have never done anything without the authorisation from the superintendency, which is the culture ministry in the territory,” he told the Guardian.

“I’ve worked there for 40 years. I arrive in the morning and leave in the evening, it’s like my home,” Fusetti said, adding that he was “a bit angry” by accusations that his team has altered works in the Chapel of St Nicholas.

Bruno Zanardi, a restorer and lecturer at the University of Urbino, central Italy, said he noticed significant changes in the chapel, which houses works by Giotto, one of the forefathers of Renaissance art, and his contemporaries Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti.

“I saw the site in 2011, and got the impression it was a good job, executed by someone I thought was a capable and expert restorer. But when I went back to the basilica a couple of months ago with my students, I had a very different impression,” Zanardi told the Italian daily La Repubblica.

The colours appeared unnatural, he said, noticing changes to the decorate sections of the frescoes. “It wasn’t simple maintenance, such as a light coating with a paint brush,” he added.

A fresco depicting the Virgin Mary fainting at the cross has reportedly suffered colour changes, particularly to the contrast of light and dark. Martini’s 14th-century saints appear flattened and lacking in detail, while the chapel’s central fresco has lost its top coat.

But Fusetti hit back at the accusations, saying the chapel was open to the public and a series of culture ministers had visited the site without criticism.

Fusetti has directed the restoration work since 1997, when 1,000 tonnes of debris collapsed on the church during an earthquake. “I was the last restorer there after the earthquake. I risked my life,” he said.

After years of painstakingly piecing the basilica back together, art experts were afforded a moment of celebration in 2012 with the discovery of Giotto’s signature. Fusetti described the find as “of great importance” to reconstructing the life and works of the Italian artist.

• An earlier version of this story was published in error