Monza: restoration of the expiatory chapel and its exedra begins

The Expiatory Chapel in Monza, the monument commissioned by Victor Emmanuel III, the son and successor of Umberto I, to commemorate the site where his father was murdered by anarchist Gaetano Bresci on July 29, 1900, will undergo new restoration. Here, at the site of the regicide, Giuseppe Sacconi, the architect to whom the House of Savoy had commissioned the Altar of the Fatherland in Rome and also the Tomb of King Umberto at the Pantheon, designed a monument visible from afar, which was to light up every July 29 as a remembrance and a warning. Below is a Greek-cross crypt, rich in precious marble and mosaics depicting starry skieson which the various coats of arms of the Savoy family stand out. On the walls still stand bronze crowns sent from all over the world as tribute to the deceased king. In the center, a black marble memorial stone commemorates the exact spot where the assassination attempt took place. The Chapel, above, is also decorated with mosaics depicting angels, busts of saints and blessed of the Savoy dynasty, while the floor is made of ancient colored marble. Crowning it is a 35-meter-high Oggiono stone stele resting on a colossal circular base.

The Expiatory Chapel immediately showed conservation problems but, with the fall of the Savoy, it no longer received the constant care it needed. The first more systematic interventions, desired by the then Superintendence of Monuments of Lombardy, began only in the 1980s. However,structural fragilities, related to both the construction methods and the materials chosen, imposed a new comprehensive overhaul to safeguard a building thatrecounts an important moment in the history of the 20th century. A project of constant scheduled maintenance was launched in 2015, when the museum was entrusted to the then Polo Museale della Lombardia (now the Museums of Lombardy Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Culture), reaffirming its museum vocation.

As Emanuela Daffra, Regional Director, explains. the “first aid” interventions involved the entrance gate and the Exedra, while a study site from 2018 put under the magnifying glass the external wall face in Oggiono stone, which has always been one of the building’s major fragilities. And again, interventions on accessibility with the elimination of architectural barriers and the creation of services for visitors, but also on the external decorative mosaic parts of bichromatic pebbles, black and white, and on the stone cladding. In sequence, then, seven bays of the exedra were restored, and a new construction site is currently being set up to finish the entire northern area of the structure. In the near future, the Chapel’s interior mosaic complex will be restored, while the conservation project on the set of bronze crowns, the subject of a systematic photographic and inventorying campaign, and on the green spaces has begun.

It will be Giuseppina Di Gangi, an architect who has already served at Pinacoteca di Brera and Biblioteca Braidense as head of architectural projects and restoration and staging, who has taken over from Barbara Galli in the direction of the Expiatory Chapel Monumental Complex, who will carry on the projects begun. In addition to these are further interventions to remove perceptual and cognitive barriers on the accessibility front, improve the lighting system of the exterior and interior area, and the study and restoration of the movable heritage

Monza: restoration of the expiatory chapel and its exedra begins

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