Despite Restoration Efforts : Pollution Eroding Italy’s Historical Monuments

One after another, proud symbols of cities and empires are disappearing from public view in Italy, victims of pollution and discouraging testimony that restoration can’t rescue every monument and artwork.

In Florence, the 15th-Century gilded panels on the east entrance to the Baptistry--a door so beautiful that Michelangelo thought it was fit for Paradise--are destined for specially sealed glass chambers inside a museum.

Now blackened and devoured by automobile pollution, the 10 bronze panels were done over a period of 23 years by Lorenzo Ghiberti before his death in 1455. They depict the Creation and other Old Testament stories. Today they are being delicately restored, one by one, to much of their shining splendor.

Originals to Be Protected

But since no known chemical coating can protect them from car exhaust, the panels will be replaced in the door by copies; the originals will end up inside the oxygenless, humidity-controlled chambers of the museum across from Florence’s cathedral.

Ghiberti’s work, dear to Florentine hearts, has good company.

Earlier this decade, the four gilded bronze horses on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice were placed, after restoration, inside the church, and their places outside were taken by copies.

The statues outside Milan’s cathedral also are going inside, and Rome will not soon see its symbol back at the City Hall square atop Capitoline Hill: The 1,800-year-old gilded bronze statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius astride his noble horse, recently restored, is too frail to withstand the pollution and vibration of Rome’s relentless traffic.

Gala Unveilings

Restoration has had some heady days in recent years. There have been gala unveilings of Venetian canal-side palaces, the emergence of Michelangelo’s bright colors during the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the titillating discovery that Adam and Eve’s fig leaves were a cover-up added to Masaccio’s fresco in a Florence church.

But less attention has gone to the sobering realization that, despite the marriage of high technology to restoration, restorers often watch helplessly as monuments crumble and others, like Ghiberti’s masterpiece, must be removed from their glorious settings to survive.

In its current state, “technology is more suitable to diagnosis” than prevention of the decay, said Alessandra Melucco, who directed restoration of the statue.

And what do you do with a monument like the 65-foot-high Arch of Settimius Severus, which isn’t easily moved, along with its spectacular setting in the Roman Forum?

‘Losing a Historical Heritage’

“In a generation, we are losing a historical heritage of 2,000 years,” said Roberto Nardi, an archeologist and restorer who was part of a team that restored one-half of the arch, one of Rome’s most badly damaged monuments.

“What took 2,000 years to erode, then took 50, now takes five years.”

Like some other restorers, Nardi said it’s time to rethink the approach to restoration.

In the case of the arch, restorers had to stop work because they ran out of money from a special fund established by Parliament earlier this decade. The restored half is more or less white, while the untouched half is coffee brown with soot and grime.

Nardi says they would have stopped anyway because they saw that pollution was damaging the monument as fast as they cleaned it.

“In five, six, 10 years,” said fellow restorer Luisa Barucci, “it will be the same argument. The black crust (will return). Italy always waits until these things are falling apart.”

Regular Maintenance Urged

Restoration, said Nardi, should be resumed only when the state begins a program of regular maintenance.

“We stopped work, but maintenance didn’t begin,” he said.

The arch was restored with a natural material, limestone plaster, that lasts about five years. The temptation is to use harsh, plastic resins that could last longer, but in some cases, the coatings made it impossible for the stone to “breathe” and the coatings themselves were difficult to remove without damaging the monument.

At a recent conference in Florence, experts called for more chemical research specifically to aid restorers.

Arnold Wolff, in charge of restoring the Cathedral of Cologne in West Germany, projected slides that showed how in less than a century, the face of a stone angel was disfigured by pollution.

“We desperately need a chemical agent to protect stone,” he said.

Role of Private Companies

Sponsored by ENI, Italy’s state energy company, the conference also discussed the role of private companies.

Alitalia, for example, backed the cleanup of the angels on Castel Sant’Angelo Bridge across the Tiber River. Olivetti sponsored the cleaning of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” a restoration now being criticized as too slow and perhaps faulty.

Offers of private funding are difficult to dismiss in Italy, where cultural projects occupy a minuscule slice of the deficit-ridden national budget.

But Luis Monreal, director of the California-based Getty Conservation Institute and a speaker at the conference, maintained that “the private sector is more project-oriented and doesn’t have an overall view.”

Private donors often want to work only on the most famous works or something that will capture public attention rather than on works most in need of restoration, said Roberto Boddi, an art conservator at Florence’s Fortezza da Basso, one of Italy’s leading restoration centers.

Adriano La Regina, Rome’s superintendent of archeology for the past 12 years, said money is lacking for regular maintenance.

Three-Year Plan

He added in an interview at his office at the Forum that his department asked for the equivalent of about $150 million last year for a minimal, three-year plan of restoration and maintenance, including the needs of museums.

Parliament approved only $6.6 million.

Nardi said his calculations indicate that it would cost about $15,000 a year to maintain a major monument in Rome, about “the same cost of providing a car and driver to a deputy” in Parliament.

La Regina said the underlying problem is not money but pollution.

“We need severe laws, to be implemented very quickly: filters on cars, abolition of harmful fuels and traffic bans,” he said.