Where the restoration of the Comunale is measured in centimetres.

Where the restoration of the Comunale is measured in centimetres.

Photographs by Ivano Adversi

On the scaffolding beneath the ceiling of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, even the labels on the jars tell a story. “Raw umber”, “burnt sienna”, they read: pigments with old names, sitting beside swabs and mixtures prepared on the spot. This is the domain of Phyllis Novara, site manager for Leonardo, the firm carrying out the restoration, who explains: «The most important restoration is the one measured in centimetres. At this moment we are in the cleaning phase: we are removing deposits, fixatives, overpainting. There was incoherent dirt across the whole surface, concentrated in one particular area where water had seeped in, so we are carrying out several operations, with specific mixtures matched to each kind of removal». No single formula for everything: every surface has its own sensitivity, and the care proceeds minutely, point by point. The decisive gesture is almost silent: «As you can see, my colleague is removing the fixative with a swab and a mixture — Novara says — and the original shading is coming back into view, where before it was completely obscured by the fixatives. Now at last we can see the light and shade again, and we are getting back more or less to what the painting originally was».

Cleaning, though, is only the first stage. «After that come the filling phases, the consolidation of the paint layer and the pictorial retouching, to give the works and the decoration their light back». The project describes them in detail: localised filling with lime-putty mortars applied with a small spatula, consolidation calibrated to the nature of the support, final retouching with watercolour glazes, to restore a correct reading of the decoration as a whole without covering the historic material. The same care will go to the decorative apparatus of the boxes, with its stuccowork and gilding: where the gold leaf has been lost, the gaps will be filled with gold leaf applied locally and then glazed, to follow the patina of the old gilding without ever replacing it. This is the patient daily work that, centimetre by centimetre and coat by coat, is giving the painted ceiling of the Sala Bibiena its light back and preparing the return of the audience to the Comunale. 191 days to the reopening: the date is 14 February 2027.