ROME â€" Officials on Wednesday announced plans for the long overdue restoration of the Carracci Gallery in the Palazzo Farnese. With the bidding process for restorers now open, work on the Baroque masterpiece, which dates to the beginning of the 17th century, is scheduled to start in January and take a year to complete.
The project will be the most ambitious and complete restoration of the gallery in centuries, involving the celebrated frescoes on the vault as well as its elaborate stucco frames and decorations, and scholars anticipate that vital information will be gleaned from the cleaning.
Even though the gallery is one of the most celebrated â€" and studied - monuments of Baroque art, i t still harbors some secrets, “like determining which hands painted which section,†said Rossella Vodret, an Italian culture ministry official responsible for Rome's historical patrimony and its museums, which paid for the preliminary studies of the restoration. The frescoes of mythological scenes were designed and painted primarily by Annibale Carracci, with some help from his brother Agostino, and several students from their workshop, including Domenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco, who went on to stellar careers in Rome. The restoration, she said, is above all a “scientific endeavor.â€
The joint Italian-French project, expected to cost about $1.5 million, was made possible with the support of the World Monuments Fund, which corralled the interest (and sponsorship) of the Robert W. Wilson Challenge to Conserve our Heritage, and the French Orangerie Foundation for Individual Philanthropy. (The Palazzo Farnese houses the French Embassy.) A scientific committee will decide on the scope of the restoration, a thorny issue with some purists.
“We are certain that if problems arise, the intelligence and professional qualities of the experts involved will win out,†Mrs. Vodret said.
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