Report of Private Committees Activities in 1999: UNESCO Culture Sector

Report of Private Committees Activities in 1999

International Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice

In response to the appeal launched by the Director-General of UNESCO in 1966, over 50 private organizations were established in a number of countries to collect and channel contributions to restore and preserve Venice. Over the years, the International Private Committees have worked closely with the Superintendencies of Monuments and Galleries of Venice, through UNESCO, to identify and address priority needs. Since 1969, they have funded the restoration of more than 100 monuments and 1,000 works of art, provided laboratory equipment and scientific expertise, sponsored research and publications and awarded innumerable grants for craftsmen, restorers and conservators to attend specialist courses in Venice. Now 33 years on, the Association of Private Committees has 29 member organizations representing 11 countries (3 new Committees, based respectively in Denmark, Italy and the United States, joined in 1999). Since 1997 the Association has enjoyed special relationship status as an NGO in operational relations with UNESCO. The budget for the 5-year period 1996-2000 is well in excess of £it. 10 billion, a sum which includes the funding of around 150 restoration and maintenance projects, the provision of over 25 bursaries and substantial contributions to the cost of the 1997 and 1999 ICCROM-UNESCO International Courses on the Conservation of Stone.

UNESCO-Private Committees Programme for the Safeguarding of Venice - 1999

The year 1999 saw committees from Australia, Austria, France, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, eight from Italy and four from the United States of America actively engaged in over 70 restoration and other projects.

PROJECTS COMPLETED IN 1999

Three and a half centuries of neglect and maltreatment were finally reversed in October 1999 with the completion of the comprehensive restoration of the Ancient Jewish Cemetery on the Lido, first established in 1386. Unused since the end of the seventeenth century, when the "new" cemetery was opened, the old burial ground had become overgrown with vegetation and overcrowded with tombstones, many of them randomly scattered and broken. The recent work, financed jointly by the public authorities and a consortium of Private Committees led by Save Venice Inc. and including the World Monuments Fund, the Venice in Peril (VIP) Fund and The Comitato per il Centro Storico Ebraico di Venezia, involved the drainage, excavation and raising of a large marshy area, the restoration and partial resiting of hundreds of stones, many dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the gradual rehabilitation of the vegetation. The Cemetery is now open to the public every Sunday and on certain other days by arrangement with the Jewish Museum in the Ghetto.

A second long-awaited inauguration was that of the restoration of the thirteenth-century sculpted marble angel and the archway supporting it in Calle Magno, Castello, financed by Pro Venezia Sweden and the Australian Committee for Venice. Working space was so confined that there was no alternative but to close the calle entirely for the duration of the restoration, thus blocking an extremely popular short-cut for local inhabitants, a telling example of how intimate a role art and history play in the fabric of the city.

Another example prompted the Association of Private Committees to provide emergency funds for the immediate recovery and restoration of a fine eighteenth-century painting damaged during the attempted theft of money from a wayside altar in nearby Via Garibaldi, one of the scores of capitelli that adorn the city.

The first stage of Venice in Peril’s exciting venture into the conservation of historic housing in Venice also reached completion during the year. This Superintendency-led project brought together an international team of undergraduate and doctoral students, academics and professional engineers and architects to produce a prototype, conservation-based plan for the restoration of a typical terraced house in Cannaregio. The almost derelict building was last restructured 200 years ago but in parts dates back at least to the sixteenth century. One of the interesting and valuable aspects of the project is that the plans must take account of the fact that the building is part of the public housing stock and so must match the principles of conservation to the practical needs dictated by the city’s housing policy. The City Council has undertaken to use the plans to carry out the restoration and vip will publish and distribute a final report.

The Comité français pour la sauvegarde de Venise often sponsors the restoration of Venetian monuments that have a French connection, as in the case of the Cappella Clary in the Church of San Trovaso, the burial place of a French princess. The most important work in the chapel is the beautiful fifteenth-century relief carving of three Greek marble panels on the front of the altar, but the project also provided for cleaning and consolidating the carved wooden stalls and uncovering the tempera paintings on the vaulting which had been whitewashed out following a fire in the last century. The Comité français also financed the restoration of Lorenzo Bregno’s sixteenth-century funeral monument to Alvise Pasqualigo in the Church of the Frari in memory of Ms Solange Gaussen. In November and December the Committee enabled the organ doors that Bonfacio de’ Pitati painted for the Church of Sant’Alvise (restored in 1998) to be put on a temporary exhibition in the Accademia Galleries. And again in 1999 the French Committee combined encouragement of craft skills in France with support for a Venetian institution by providing bursaries for a French craftswoman to attend several courses at the Venice European Centre for the Trades and Crafts of the Conservation of the Architectural Heritage. The Centre itself made substantial practical contributions to several restoration projects in the city, established links with several European universities and considerably widened its catchment area to take in the Asian and American continents.
Save Venice Inc. brought three projects in the Church of San Francesco della Vigna to completion during the year. The Cappella Badoer-Giustinian was restored in memory of one of the founding fathers of the international private organizations for Venice, John MacAndrew, and his wife Betty. The chapel is faced with relief sculptures that were probably salvaged from an early-Renaissance choir screen formerly in the body of the church, as happened in the churches of S. Giovanni in Bragora and S. Stefano. The refinement, harmony and elegance revealed in the early-fifteenth-century Madonna dell’Umiltà, an image in which the Virgin is seated humbly on the ground or on a cushion rather than enthroned in glory, make its restoration one of the most significant in recent years. The third item was an early alabaster statue of St. Louis of Toulouse, known as S. Alvise in Venice. Another church that has received consistent support from Save Venice is that of S. Giovanni in Bragora, where this year work on the Chapel of S. Giovanni Elemosinario was completed with restoration of the carved and gilded wooden sarcophagus lid. The American committee confirmed its commitment to maintenance as the key to staving off the risks always involved in restoration by attending to the famous altarpiece by Cima da Conegliano in the Church of Madonna dell’Orto. And it ensured that the two fine Baroque holy-water stoups at the entrance to the Church of the Salutate were once again ready for use by the Festa della Salute in December.

Following its long and painstaking restoration, the remarkable mid-sixteenth-century painted Crucifixion group in wood, with the Virgin and St. John, from the Church of San Michele, financed by the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia and the Stichting Nederlands Venetië Comité, will return to a new, "healthier" site in the church in spring 2000. A study of this and similar sculptures in Venice and the Veneto, prompted by the restoration, is to be published in 2000. The Dutch Committee also took the first step towards consideration of a major project to restore the façade of the Church of San Zaccaria by commissioning a photogrammetric survey and chemical and physical analyses of the stonework, thereby enabling the Superintendency to produce detailed plans and costing for the proposed work.

In 1999 the Venice International Foundation’s wide-ranging support for the cultural initiatives of Venice City Council took the form of financial contributions for the restoration of the "Browning" mezzanine in Cà Rezzonico, where the English poet died in 1889, and of the clock tower in St. Mark’s Square; the Foundation also funded educational programmes relating to an exhibition of works by Claes Oldenberg at the Correr Museum and to the Doge’s Palace.

The International Committee for the Arsenale followed-up in its efforts to promote a historically sensitive and economically viable future for the great dockyard of the Republic and was accorded formal consultative status as a member, with the Superintendency of the Architectural Heritage, of the Naval Command's working group responsible for devising an integrated development plan for the whole area. Near the Arsenale, in the Naval Museum, the World Monuments Fund financed the restoration of the carved, gilded and painted sides of the poop deck of a flagship galley sunk by the Turks in 1657.

And even before its election as a member of the Association of Private Committees in October, Venetian Heritage Inc. was making preparations to finance several projects in the city. One of these - the sophisticated infra-red investigative technology purchased for the Superintendency’s restoration laboratory at San Gregorio - was already being used by the end of the year.

PROJECTS STARTED OR CONTINUED IN 1999

During the year Save Venice Inc. Passed from the planning to the execution phase of the restoration of the German Synagogue, but even after full-scale preparatory surveys and tests the Superintendency is already having to cope with the unforseeable consequences of the intricacies and improvisations that characterized building practices in the Ghetto over the centuries; and with the fact that, as elsewhere in the city, the monumental overlaps and intersects constantly with the residential. The American committee has guaranteed the finance required for further analysis and research on the façade of the former Scuola Grande di San Marco, now the City Hospital. A full photogrammetric survey was completed in 1999 and as soon as scaffolding can be erected, the remaining tests will be carried out and plans finalized for the restoration proper. Following similar exhaustive preliminary studies, the exemplary restoration of a cycle of fifteenth-century frescoes in the chancel and apse of the Church of San Samuele is now well advanced and 2000 should also see completion of work on the elegant Cappella Gussoni in the Church of San Lio. Of the two exquisite Renaissance altars by Antonio Rizzo in St. Mark’s Basilica, the one dedicated to St. Paul was completed by Christmas and the other, dedicated to St. James, will be finished early in the Jubilee Year, as will the restoration of panel paintings and frescoes by Pordenone, belonging to the Church of San Rocco. save venice continued to use funds provided by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to create computerized catalogues of the City Hospital’s historic collection of books and manuscripts and of historic parish archives (those of the Parishes of S. Angelo Raffaele and S. Nicolò dei Mendicoli were completed in 1999 and S. Felice is already scheduled for next year). In all cases the intention is that the catalogues should be made available on-line to scholars everywhere.

The Amici della Basilica dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo (with funding from the Fondazione Varzi) commissioned preliminary chemical analyses in the Cappella Sagredo, with frescoes by Tiepolo, in the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna. A programme of work drawn up on the basis of these and other preliminary investigations is ready to start. Funds made available by the "Inner Wheel" association of Venice have enabled the Committee to undertake the restoration of a painting of the "Holy Trinity" by Leandro Bassano back in its "home" church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo. And a project funded jointly by the Amici and Save Venice Inc. and involving the restoration of the eithteenth-century gilded wood throne used by the Doge on visits to the Basilica, together with a processional canopy entirely embroidered with tiny glass beads threaded on fine metal wire, is approaching completion.

In another joint effort, the Comitato Italiano per Venezia secured funding for the restoration of the dozens of iron window and door frames in the ancient Artiglierie building in the Arsenale, in time for part of it to be used as an exhibition venue for the 1999 Venice Biennale (the Superintendency used its ministerial budget to restore the roof and Special Law funding was allocated for other necessary work). The Italian Committee will finance further restoration work in the vast building in 2000. Cooperating this time with the new American committee Venetian Heritage Inc., the Comitato Italiano saw work on the high altar of the Church of San Rocco almost completed and a start made on two gilded and painted wooden altars in the Basilica on Torcello. And working on its own account, Venetian Heritage launched the preliminary phases of two major projects during the year in preparation for the restoration of the frescoes in the sacristy of the Church of S. Salvador and of the façade of the Church of the Gesuiti.

Responding to the Superintendency’s urgent appeal for attention to the Cappella Emiliani, attached to the façade of the Church of San Michele, the Venice in Peril Fund financed preliminary diagnostic surveys and analyses prior to the drafting of a major restoration project. The Fund also made representations to the Magistrato alle Acque, the authority responsible for traffic regulation in the Lagoon, asking for speed limits to be strictly imposed on boats passing the island in an attempt to reduce the damage constantly being caused to the building and its foundations by excessive wash.

Pro Venezia Switzerland has always been sensitive to the need for constant monitoring and prompt maintenance of restored buildings. True to this principle, the Swiss Committee provided funds for tests to be carried out on the façade of the Church of S. Maria del Giglio which it helped to restore as recently as 1997 and also for regular inspection of the pigeon "dissuasion" system.

The Comité français pour la sauvegarde de Venise began the restoration and refurbishment of two frescoed rooms in the Querini Stampalia Foundation, once occupied by the Serenissima’s last ambassador to France. The removal of crude nineteenth-century overpainting has revealed an almost complete original decorative scheme that quite transforms the rooms concerned. They will be reopened as part of the Museum as soon as new wall-hangings are installed. In another of the city’s museums, Cà Rezzonico, the Venice International Foundation is continuing its restoration of the entire cycle of the frescoes that Giandomenico Tiepolo painted originally for the family’s country house at Zianigo.

The Venice branch of Zonta Club International undertook to fund the restoration of Jacopo Bassano’s famous painting of the "Nativity" in the Basilica of S. Giorgio Maggiore, and the Association of Private Committees is using funds donated by the Japanese Horiuchi Foundation for the restoration of a painting of St. George and the Dragon by Carpaccio from the Cappella del Conclave, also in S. Giorgio; a private donation has enabled the Association to provide for the restoration of a statue of the Madonna over the entrance to the Church of San Samuele; and Association funds have ensured restoration of a badly damaged painting of "Armida and Rinaldo" by the seventeenth-century artist Ponzone at the Cini Foundation.

PROJECTS SCHEDULED TO START IN 2000

As well as several restorations for which preliminary studies have been carried out in 1999, as mentioned above, the following projects have been financed and are waiting to start:

Venedig lebt of Vienna: the early seventeenth-century high altar and the altarpiece by Palma il Giovane in the Church of San Lio.

Stichting Nederlands Venetië Comité: the twelfth-century mosaic floor and two gilded fifteenth-century polyptych frames in the Cappella San Tarasio in the Church of San Zaccaria.

Comitato Italiano per Venezia: the seventeenth-century monument to Lazzaro Ferro in the Church of S. Stefano; the monument to Jacopo Foscarini in the Church of the Carmini; the frescoed half-dome over the high altar in the Church of San Rocco (in association with the Scuola San Rocco); and an eighteenth-century ceiling painting in the Church of San Marcuola (in association with the State).

Pro Venezia Switzerland: preliminary investigations into the state of conservation of the monument to Alvise Mocenigo in the Church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti.

Save Venice Inc.: the organ in the Basilica of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo; Longhena’s gilded wood tribuna over the high altar in the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna; the Pesaro and Trevisan monuments in the Church of the Frari; the monumental entrance to the sacristy in the Basilica of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo; a painting by Veronese in the Church of S. Pietro di Castello; a new inner door for the Church of the Miracoli; and the restoration and digitalization of a segment of the huge Giacomelli photographic archive, purchased by Venice City Council in 1995.

Venetian Heritage Inc.: the Renaissance entrance to the Church of Sant’Elena.

Italia Nostra: a further group of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century public proclamation stones (following the seven restored in 1998).

Venice in Peril: another wall painting in the Church of the Eremite; the carved stone side entrance to the Church of S. Rocco.

World Monuments Fund: the late fifteenth-century equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni by Andrea Verrocchio (in association with the Italian State).

All restoration work financed under the UNESCO-Private Committees Programme for the Safeguarding of Venice is directed by the Superintendencies of the Cultural Heritage of Venice.










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