Winter 2023

Top: A pentimento by Il Volteranno from a Roberto
Longhi Foundation drawing
Above: Leticia Montalbano and Alessia Bianchi examine
drawings under restoration
Turchine nun – who, in her youth, was forced into
one of the strictest cloistered orders of all time –
travels through the ‘open spaces’ of her dreams.
To use a term from modern-day psychology, Maria
Luisa Raggi’s artworks were a form evasion.”
It was with those words in mind that the RC
crew alit upon the Opificio delle Pietre Dure.
Once a Medici workshop for inlaid semi-precious
stone work or mosaico fiorentino, the Opificio
was founded in 1588 by Grand Duke Ferdinando I.
It took on the mantel of its modern-day vocation,
as one of the top three restoration laboratories in
the world, after being used as an ‘emergency room
for art victims’ of the 1966 flood, as desperate city
administrators sought out a large space in which
to collect and protect the over 14,000 artworks
damaged by 600,000 tons of rubble and mud that
invaded the city, with the Arno’s historic flooding
on November 4. The flood was like no siege the
city had ever seen.
Today, the Opificio, which operates under the
Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage, is also
a Higher Education Research Centre whose
programme lasts five years. Headed by director
and senior conservator Letizia Montalbano, it
also involves a year-and-a-half thesis project,
post course. Three of Montalbano’s five student
restorers were on site for the broadcast – all
44 Restoration Conversations • Winter 2023