Present Conservation
Many factors contributed to make the conservation of the wall painting cycle by Filippo Lippi not only an optimal opportunity for conservation, but also a rewarding collaboration experience among several institutions working in the field of cultural heritage. This collaboration created, in addition to the traditional conservation workshop, a research program aimed to characterize the original painting technique and to address specific conservation problems. The methodology of the conservation project, begun in 2001 and completed in 2006, was developed and regularly checked on the basis of rigorous research and monitoring of the wall paintings.

A preliminary graphic recording of the condition of the wall paintings was carried out and included a survey of the types of deterioration identified through diagnostic investigations and through comparison with the results of previous restoration, especially the latest carried out from 1969 to 1973 by Leonetto Tintori (please see the text on previous restorations).

At the same time Lippi’s painting technique was studied through direct examination of all its components, such as: giornate (patch of plaster painted in a day), drawing transfer techniques such as spolvero (pounced drawing) or cartone (incised drawing), types of pigments, etc. Lippi’s particular technique included a general structure a fresco (painting directly on the wet plaster) (view images) followed in many cases with retouches or entire scenes painted a secco (on the dry plaster).

Portions painted a secco, are today, for the most part, lost. The painter did not limit himself to small changes or working on the details a secco; he added entire sections and sometimes even a new figure (such as the angel in the scene of the calling of Saint John to the hermit’s life (view images), or the baby in the cycle of Saint Stephen nursing from a deer view images), which, being lost, make the interpretation of some passages of the narrative cycle difficult.

Filippo Lippi, in painting a secco, used azurite for most of the blue, lapis lazuli (only for a few capes), malachite, lead white, linseed oil – also noted in the historical documents and probably used for applying gold leaf – cinnabar, Naples yellow, red ochre, yellow ochre, green earth, calcium carbonate and verdigris. Sadly, the tempera portions (painted a secco) are extensively lost due to their nature and fragility to climatic factors, leaving at times only traces of the original (as in the case of the white preparation that shows many figures in the “Banquet of Herod” (view images), and in the case of the silhouettes of the trees in the “Birth of Saint Stephen”).

The presence of tempera had been a problem also in previous restorations, and the work of Tintori deserves special merit for preserving what remained a secco while removing the repainting added by previous restorer (Marini).

Text by Cristina Gnoni Mavarelli e Isabella Lapi Ballerini