At the Vatican Museums, a narrative and interactive path recounts one hundred years of restorations

Inaugurated at the Vatican Museums the exhibition initiative Beyond the Surface. The Restorer’s Gaze, promoted by the museum headquarters as part of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the activity of the Vatican Museums’ Painting and Wooden Materials Restoration Laboratory. For more than a year, the visit to the pontifical galleries will thus be enriched by an integrative, interactive and widespread path to discover the secrets, curiosities and anecdotes behind a work of art, to appreciate up close those details that are only revealed under the lens of restoration. Narrative pills available thanks to the QR Code and the use of one’s smartphone. It will be enough to approach one of the thirty-seven smart palettes placed along the museum route (placed near the pictorial work and recognizable by distinctive logo and coordinated graphics), scan the QR Code and access extra content about the chosen pictorial work.

“A Different Look,” “Let’s Go Inside the Work,” “Under the Frame,” “Unexpected Discovery,” “Come Up with Us,” and “Who’s Up There?” are just a few of the titles intended to invite visitors to stop and devote a few minutes of their attention to the “behind-the-scenes” offered, in both Italian and English, by the restorer: curiosities, anecdotes, hidden secrets, execution techniques, and conservation histories.

“This is the oldest traditional Workshop we have at the Museums,” said Vatican Museums Director Barbara Jatta, “and also the most numerous in terms of people. This is an important centenary because it tells of so many things that have been done: from the ’restoration of the century’ of the Sistine Chapel to that of the Raphael Rooms, or the Borgia apartment; but also many other restorations: from the recent one of the Salus Populi Romani to the Crucifix of St. Eutizio, which is not a work from our collections, but testifies to the attention of the Pope’s Museums to the works of devotion present in the area. An attention that is expressed through the knowledge and cultural background that our highly skilled professional restorers have been carrying out for centuries. Hands and heart that restore beauty and hope.”

Image: Restorer Gianluigi Colalucci during the cleaning of Michelangelo’s Vault.

At the Vatican Museums, a narrative and interactive path recounts one hundred years of restorations

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