The Conference “Discovered wall paintings in the Crucifix Chapel” was held in Aci Sant’Antonio April 26th.
The Crucifix Chapel.
A cycle of 18th century mural paintings was revealed in 2012 during maintenance works in the Crucifix Chapel of the Mother Church in Aci Sant’Antonio. The paintings have survived along the corners of the originally square chapel that was altered in the early 20th century, acquiring the current octagonal-shaped construction. All of the murals except the scenes on the corners have been destroyed and irremediably lost.
The diagnostics campaign.
The mural paintings were first documented by CHSOS with technical photography (visible, raking light, infrared, ultraviolet fluorescence and infrared false color). Then analytical examination was performed both on-site (with pXRF) by UCSD (USA) and on 7 paint fragments collected from the floor near the murals by the Hercules laboratory (Portugal). The analytical setup comprised optical microscopy, electronic microscopy with x-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDS), X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and µFT-IR.
Promoting Conservation through awareness
Since 2013 CHSOS has pursued diagnostics and documentation of these mural paintings which produced two publications and a poster presented to TECHNART 2015. This information was used to formulate a conservation intervention which was presented on April 26th to the community of Aci Sant’Antonio. The murals are in need of immediate conservation treatment and thanks to international academic collaborations promoted by CHSOS diagnostic documentation and conservation assessment have been performed in order to inform the planning and elaboration of the conservation project.
We enjoyed the participation of the scientists and conservators that collaborated to the project:
Samantha Stout (University of California San Diego)
Milene Gil (University of Evora, Portugal)
Corinna Koch Dandolo (University of Danimark)
Camilla Perondi (former training participant)
More info on the Crucifix chapel cappella del Crocifisso
