Detached frescoes, conservation and museum settings. Historical research, non-invasive diagnostic and Digital Heritage for a new inclusive Museology

Descrizione del progetto:

The aim of the project is the study of the detachment of frescoes painted between the 18th and the 20th century, part of the patrimony held in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna and in the Fondazione Brescia Musei. The research units will carry out the project through a multidisciplinary approach rooted in innovation, competitiveness and green development as promoted by the PNRR and the 2030 climate and energy agenda. The project establishes a dialogue among the history of restoration, museology, the history of collecting and art criticism, diagnostics applied to cultural heritage and digital humanities. The decontextualization of frescoes which are now preserved in the museums collections can result in a troubled reception for the public, visitors not being able tosee the sites of origin of the mural paintings inside the museum set-up and suffering the signs caused by the traumatic action of extraction which eventually compromised the frescoes’ aesthetic values. It is thus for these reasons that the communication to the public of the historical value of these artworks is challenging. Museums need new cultural tools to develop the possibility of displaying these art pieces, approaching new methodologies to exhibit frescoes and to share theirhistory with visitors. The project foresees the research on every single case of frescos preserved in the two museums, collecting documents and historical photos about the detachement and the restoration of the artworks. The research materials will be organised in critical sheets by those involved in the project. Next to the historical-critical study on the museum pieces, the researchers will create a database containing the catalogue raisonné of the single pieces, available in openaccess on the website of Rossana Bossaglia’s Research Centre of the University of Verona.

According to the Ministerial Decree of February 21, 2010, which establishes the Uniform Levels of Quality for Museums, the main lines of development of the project aim at implementing a more heterogeneous audience of visitors, at improving the accessibility of cultural heritage, at promoting the territory and finally at enhancing the communication strategies by exploiting new technologies. All materials collected during the creation of the research database will be integrated with the results of punctual campaigns of N.I.diagnostic analysis, allowing to collect a large amount of information on both the technical and the conservation history of the works, essential to plan the following restoration campaigns. All the critical sheets will eventually be useful to design the digital reconstruction and 3D models of the works’ original contexts. This kind of work will be important to combine the pure historical research with the scientific analysis, the technological tools of digital humanities with the economical field related with cultural heritage, with the result of promoting Italian places of culture and sumbmerged heritage to the public