Italian Treasures Women With A Mission

Scores of young Italian women are dedicating themselves to the rescue and repair of paintings, frescoes, sculptures, mouldings and church facades. Step into their world and share what it feels like to be a custodian of beauty.

- Katie Breen & Isabella De Maddalena

Their heads bent down, their faces reminiscent of Renaissance art, some students from the Restoration Institute* in Rome are immersed in the painting ‘Madonna with Child and Four Angels’, a 15th-century piece from Botticelli’s studio. Their hands protected by blue rubber gloves, they take away the coating and consolidate the painting’s wooden support before it goes back to Palazzo Pitti in Florence. In another workshop, Valeria studies the condition of an antique stone head, recently recovered from thieves thanks to the Italian Art Police Squad.

Far from Rome, in Treviso, a medieval city near Venice, Giovanna, Sofia and Cecilia are engrossed in cleaning up the ‘Illustrious Dominicans’, famous frescoes, which depict 40 Dominican monks from the 14th century.

In Ancona, a seaport on the Adriatic Coast, a former leprosy hospital has become a thriving cultural centre and the temporary home to many artefacts, which were smashed during the 24 August 2016 earthquake in the centre of Italy. The students are in the process of classifying the objects and repairing the damages. Two of them are putting together the pieces of a 17th-century golden tabernacle, while others are cleaning the remnants of a decorative element from a church altar.