Thursday 20 February 2025 at 8:30 pm in the Sala degli Affreschi of the Accademia Tadini, the volume will be presented: La «Fabrica» della Via Crucis. Il Santuario di Cerveno tra ricerca e restauro, edited by Marco Albertario (Montichiari 2024, pp. 368). The meeting will be attended by Maria Ines Aliverti, University of Pisa, and the restorers Gabriele Chiappa, Alessandra Didoné, Luciano Gritti, Giovanna Jacotti. Moderator Marco Albertario, editor of the volume.

The restoration of the Chapels of the Sanctuary of Cerveno was a long and complex intervention, divided into four lots: the first between 2010 and 2014 for the first four Stations (I-IV); the second from March 2017 to November 2018 for Chapels V and VIII; the third from November 2020 to December 2021, recovery of Stations VI and IX and finally from December 2021 to February 2024 for the restoration of chapels VII, X, XI, XII, XIII and XIV and the Staircase. The works are designed and carried out by the Indaco Consortium composed of Gabriele Chiappa, Alessandra Didonè, Eugenio Gritti, Luciano Gritti and Giovanna Jacotti.

At the conclusion of the works, the Indaco Consortium wanted to return the results collected during the intervention at the Sanctuary of Cerveno by coordinating them in a publication that brings together archival research and technical data.

The imposing complex groups together around a monumental staircase, built between 1740 and 1750, fourteen chapels which, as in the tradition of the Sacri Monti, host the plastic representation of the stations of the Via Crucis. Most of the statues are by the sculptor Beniamino Simoni, who worked between 1752 and 1759 and made this complex one of the main examples of the concept of “regulated devotion” to which the pastoral pedagogy of the parish priests of Cerveno tended. The work will be completed by the Fantoni workshop (1763-1765). The intervention of the sculptor Giovanni Seleroni (1869-1871) will conclude the journey with the Lamentation group.

The first part of the volume proposes a re-examination of the historical and artistic context in which the intervention is set and has been entrusted to the contributions of Marco Albertario, Maria Letizia Casati, Monica Ibsen, Maria Stefania Matti, Riccardo Panigada, Lidia Rigon, Luca Rinaldi, Federico Troletti, who take up in detail and propose again with many novelties the results of the research conducted starting from the archival sources and the material data that emerged from the dialogue with the restorers.

In the second part Gabriele Chiappa and Alessandra Didonè examine the fresco decoration, Luciano Gritti and Giovanna Jacotti give an account of the methodology adopted during the restoration and analyze the executive techniques of the frescoes, stuccos and wooden statues.

The volume uses a photographic campaign conducted by Fotostudio Rapuzzi, BAMSphoto Rodella.

Text provided by the Accademia Tadini

Cover image taken from the event page on the Accademia Tadini website