Documents:
Title:	Madonna del Parto: Post-restoration
Creator:	Piero d. Francesca
Date:	15th century
Location:	Europe, Italy, Arezzo, Monterchi
Description:	Madonna del Parto, fresco by Piero della Francesca post-restoration. Restoration has been carried out in the 90's, using the Ferroni-Dini method for the cleaning and the consolidation. Post-restoration. In seven days ( before 1465) Piero painted the Madonna del Parto. The fresco was painted to complete the back wall of the main altar in the church of Santa Maria di Momentana (XIII century) in a country village close to Monterchi (Arezzo, Italy). The church was completely destroyed after the earthquake of the 1785 but, miraculously, the wall with the fresco was left standing. Then the paint was detached and moved into a niche in a new church. In 1889, the fresco was rediscovered to be one of the Piero della Francesca main work of art. The fresco it was again detached from its new collocation in 1910 by Domenico Fiscali and then saved from an other earthquake in 1917. During the Fiscalis' restoration the paint has been placed on a gypsum support reinforced with an metallic net. This is one of the main reasons of the presence of sulphatization phenomena observed in this fresco. From 1956 until its restoration in 1992/93 the Madonna del Parto was conserved inside a new chapel built from the remains of the earlier structure. After many environmental studies, it was possible to find a hypothesis of the original geometry of the paint and then it was possible to build an appropriate metal frame to hold the restored painting. In order to provide for the right conservation of the fresco, the Madonna del Parto was placed in a specially designed climate controlled case. Now the fresco is located in a public school in Monterchi (Arezzo, Italy).
Rights:	Ministry of Culture of Italy
Reference:	Center for Colloid and Interface Science (CSGI - Consorzio Interuniversitario Sistemi Grande Interfase), University of Florence