News from Pisa: heated canvases will protect Buffalmacco’s fresco from condensation

The complex operations running in Pisa to bring back the notorious frescoes of the Campo Santo (the medioeval city’s cemetery) to their original location have made a new important step forward. At the time of our last report from Pisa, a colony of bacteria was eating, and cleaning, the special glue used after the Second World War to transfer the frescoes onto the canvas. Now the colony has finished its job and restorers are finally ready to place the “Anchorites” by Buffalmacco onto the walls they were originally painted for.

 

In the meantime, a new technical solution has been introduced to avoid the dangerous effects of condensation on the frescoes. In fact, in order to assure the heat-balance that will keep the painting protected from humidity, some specific thermal canvases have been placed between the wall and the restored frescoes. Each time the climate sensors placed in the area will advise that the condition of humidity and the temperature in the air may produce condensation, the special canvases will be heated up to warm the pictorial surface.

December 17, 2014