Monday the 7th of December to Sunday the 13th of December, 2015
Cecilia Bladh in Zito, Hans Pietserse, Christel Harms and Dick de Jongh made a working visit to Rome, Fabriano and Florence. The trip was organized by Cecilia.
Arrival in Rome, Cecilia by car, the others by air. Where we lived in Rome: Via dei Banchi Nuovi 34, Roma, opposite the Vatican, near the Ponte di Castello del Angelo, in walking distance of the Piazza Navona. Very beautiful old house on the first floor with enormously high ceilings. More than enough space for the four of us.
No entrance for cars of non-inhabitants in the neighborhood, the car went into a parking garage, rather far away. The attendants who move your car are real masters in moving cars in and out of the smallest spaces.
Walked along the Tiber passing the Isola Tiberina with the Jewish hospital, very quiet you feel yourself outside the city.
Colosseum, too many tourists. But we did get the Temple of Vesta in our sights.
Visit to Library of the Maltese Order, Via dei Condotti 68. The building is in the most expensive shopping street of Rome starting from the Piazza di Spagna with the Spanish stairs. Before entering we had a doppio in a very chique coffee bar, the Antico Caffe Greco, feeling as if back in the time of Proust.
After a serious passport control the librarian received us. Two tables with books had been laid ready for us. The first table was 14th-16th century, documents in book form used for the application to the order. The applicants needed to show that their family was of nobility for 200 years, or four generations in both the male and the female line. Also their possessions, especially their land and villas, were described. There were always two copies, one official book (in leather), the other a working copy for inspection (in vellum).
Both were deeds drawn up and initialed by a notary public with an impressive seal. For non-members employed by the order like knights, monks, priests it was sufficient to show that their parents were married.
On the second table there were more modern books but also incunabula like the Liber Chronicarum. The possessions of the order had been saved from the eager arms of Napoleon but were taken by the new Italian state when not much later it confiscated all possessions of the church. Much was returned later.
In the morning, restoration institute: ISCR – Instituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, Via di San Michele 23, Roma.
The restoration study of the institute is a master program and it has a restoration lab (with a chemical and technical department). The first atelier in which we arrived (see photo) was the leather section. They were conserving and restoring leather coming from a room where it draped the walls. The leather was torn and was being newly sown together with gold leather.
In the paper section there was a map of Rome from 1400(?), paper on linen (see photo). They had already been working on it for 2 years. A recipe: MC2000, japanese paper double, enzyme Amilas/Protease.
Japanese drawing on paper, crinkled because it had a western frame attached to it. It had been removed. But they hadn't been able to remove the substratum to which the drawing was glued. They washed the painting usin cyclododecan spray to protect the color. They take the spray off with a hairdryer.
There were three paintings from the First World War. Italy was heavily involved in this war, in the Alps. The painter's name is Giulio Aristide Sartorio.
Cap of a priest, together with shoes. Clothing from the middle ages generally contains lots of older material from repairs and changes.
There was also a flag, the fifth oldest Italian flag. It had arrived in the restoration lab from army barracks after a misguided attempt to clean it in a washing machine, arriving in a box with small pieces of flag. It was not yet the ordinary 3-colored flag but it had a crown in the middle. The green had been best preserved because it is closest the flagpole and flaps therefore less in the wind, but the red, farthest from the flagpole was better preserved than the white in the middle, the red paint had made it more compact. The white part had mostly been pulverized and had been mounted on a plaiting frame as a jigsaw puzzle.
The wood section had an impressive workroom. The first patient we saw was a Christ on the operating table, wounded in the Aquila earth quake, with a broken arm and leg and a boxer's nose. The arm and leg had been completely healed but the nose was a problem, they hadn't been able to come up with a method to repair it in a reversible manner, so they had left it much as it was. We also saw a panel with a Madonna and Child, perfectly restored with papier maché. At the end of the room we saw old wooding paintings (without value) that were there to be treated by students for their entrance exam.
Only vertical lines are restored here. For tears in the wood they used Balsite (CTS), and to clean wooden panels they use gel mixed with alcohol, aceton etc. For the gel they use pampers.
Legatoria Scura, Via degli Scipioni 20. The legatoria is in an old Roman house with stairs going up and down. The favorite place of the grandfather/founder in front of the window had been preserved as it was. All the humid and wet works are done in the basement (like washing paper, doing marbled paper, restoration of paper); the second lowest basement are for binding and cleaning the books. At the entrance level they meet their clients and store all the books, at the first floor they put the books together and the office is located on a glass balcony. Legatoria Scura has existed for five generation. It is now owned by Alessandro Scura and his aunt Maria Antonietta Scura. Also Alessandro’s father, Roberto, is still working at the bookbindery.
We took lunch at Hosteria Dino e Toni, Via Leone IV 60. Long tables with lots of people, family and friends, baby handed down the table, wonderful food and wine in high quantities, with the owners joining us, and old style service.
Vatican Secret Archives Maria Antonietta Scura joined us in this excursion. We met the person who engineered our visit to the archives just in front of the entrance. He was an impressive figure dressed in black, ascetic but very decisive. We entered then via Swiss guards at the Saint Anne’s entrance and passport control. Then to the trade entrance of the archives, having left the masses of tourists completely behind us, entering a silent, quieter world of past ages. After all our possessions were placed in lockers, we walked through the archives. In the beginning there were still some people allowed to study documents in special rooms. We were told that when the more secret books or documents are restored a person is sitting next to the restorer checking that he or she does not read the book or document while restoring it. From then onwards we were alone with a guide and guard, continuously up and down long stairs, with only a rare staff member in some strangely located office. In a very large hall we saw part of the 85km documents that are stored here. Behind a fence the documents from 1939 and onwards are stored, locked away, still not open for research. According to the guide there is a rumor that Pope Franciscus will have them opened. He will have to do that then at least until 1959 then, because opening is by periods in which a pope reigns, in this case Pius XII. We again descended through some rooms. One had documents concerning Pope Celestinus V, the patron saint of book binders. He became Pope after a 2-year stalemate in choosing one. On the basis of the dream of one cardinal a humble priest was chosen. On his arrival he knelt for the people. The only edict remaining from him is an edict that popes are allowed to abdicate. He did so shortly after, reigning for only 161 days. He gave as reasons for his abdication his longing to return to his humble priesthood, a purer life and an unsullied conscience, his ignorance and the perverseness of the people. He was emprisoned by the next pope in a castle in which he died one and a half year later.
After that we had a look into the heavily guarded and heavily acclimatized room where important documents lie, written by and about Galileo Galilei, some with golden seals. After many more stairs up we suddenly arrived in a room where the first line of the sun should have marked the floor at March 1, but didn't, so that Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar into the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.
Then suddenly we stood outside on a balcony of the Tower of the Wind high above Rome. We descended to another important room, of the prefect (and head of the achieves), where we admired the letter that Henry VIII wrote to the Pope when he asked the Pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon with 85 seals of all the noblemen in the Kingdom of England to support him. We all know that the Pope refused, with momentous consequences. This letter had been hidden in a chair to evade the grabbing arms of Napoleon.
On the way to Firenze we stopped at the paper factory of Fabriano. We had a tour by a well-informed guide at the Museum della Carta e della Filigrana. Interesting was the collection of old watermarks. They had been invented there early 14th century and the first watermark was still to bee seen in its original form. We bought a large quantity of Fabriano paper in the town. On Dick's request we had diner at the Trasimeno Lake, the location where Hannibal defeated the Roman army in a very bad way. It was a good choice; among other things we left the restaurant with the car full with boxes of wine and prosecco.
Late in the evening we arrived in Florence. Our address was in a good location, but very high with narrow stairs and a party next door going on through the night.
Legatoria Giulio Giannini e Figlo. Five generations of bookbinders/restorers. The present owner showed us work of his ancestors. He feared the end of the tradition, with only some small hope for the grandson.
Hans leaves very early for the airport. This was the end of the working visit, five perfect days by four people in harmony, five days of not only worthwhile instruction but also beautiful surroundings, good food and lots of humor. Cecilia and Christel use the way to Siena as an opportunity to visit three different shops. Magnificent fashion with magnificent prices from Gucci to Prada to Ferragamo and Dolce & Gabana, addresses (Best Prada outlet: Prada SPA, Via Meucci, Barberino del Mugello, Montevarchi or go to The Mall, Via Europa 8, 50066Leccio).
Cecilia departs to the Amalfi coast, Dick and Christel, the next day to Pontignano with the conference in memoriam Franco Montagna.
