Photo: Villa Imperiale in Pesaro, Sala del Giuramento

Intervening on a restoration is a complex and delicate operation: certainly exciting, and not only for a student, even more so if we are talking about the mural paintings that enrich the splendid Villa Imperiale in Pesaro, a real jewel immersed in the countryside, erected at the behest of the Sforza family and renovated in the first half of the 16th century by Eleonora Gonzaga and Francesco Maria della Rovere.

The building site for the study and conservation of the Villa’s wall paintings began in 2022 and continues thanks to the collaboration between the Castelbarco Albani family, the Degree Course in Conservation and Restoration of the SUPSI-Department of environment constructions and design and the Master Conservation of Wall Paintings of the Courtauld Institute of Arts (University of London).

A team of conservator-restorers from the two institutes, supported by scientific experts, assessed the state of conservation of the paintings and proposed the necessary measures for their good preservation over time.

An entire team had to figure out how to intervene in order to respect the authenticity and delicacy of the wall paintings by facing both a cultural and technical challenge.

Giacinta Jean, head of the Degree Course in Conservation and Restoration at SUPSI, emphasises ‘the opportunity to combine the study of painting, in this case truly rare on the Italian scene, with the analysis of various natural phenomena of degradation, alteration and transformation that make intervention on this type of stratification extremely complex’.

The 2024 site was generously supported by the Isabel and Balz Baechi Foundation for the protection of wall paintings. The Foundation’s intervention made it possible to complete the securing of the delicate painted surfaces in the Sala della Calunnia and the Sala del Giuramento and to carry out an in-depth study of the paintings in the Sala delle Cariatidi, which is fundamental for planning future conservation interventions.