Naples, wooden stalls and armoirs in the church of the Certosa of S. Martino
Date
Wednesday June 15th, 2016
DATA SHEET
AUTHOR:
Choir of Conversi, stalls, Giovan Francesco d’Arezzo and Master Prospero
Sacristy, armoirs, Henry of Utrecht, Lorenzo Ducha and Theodore Vogel
DATING:
Choir of Conversi, early XVI century
Sacristy, late XVI century
LOCATION:
Naples, Certosa of San Martino, church of San Giacomo
CUSTOMER:
Superintendence for the State Museums of Naples – Dr. Maria Tamajo Contarini
THE PROBLEM
As a consequence of the occurrence of important deformation by warping both on armoirs walls of the Sacristy, both on panels of the stalls in the choir of converts, in September 2003 began a long period of monitoring, maintenance and pilot interventions on the supports.
At first, in 2004, both environments were interested. It has been possible since 2005 to 2013 to intervene with maintenance only in the Sacristy.
The fundamental problem was to try to trace the causes of this considerable damage which had occurred after only a few years since the last architectural restoration.
THE METHOD
The first action was to organize an environmental monitoring in the two spaces and neighboring. A private company took over and recorded for one year all the microclimate data, due to the advice and the supervision of the head of the laboratory of physical ICR prof. Carlo Cacace.
The first disinfestation treatments and rehabilitation of marquetry took place in 2004.
In 2004 it was made the state detection of preservation of all wooden artefacts of the sacristy and the choir of Conversi, with photographs, thematic reports and tables.
It was also implemented a renovation of the support in particular on four panels of the sacristy, those which had suffered major damage.
During this phase of analysis and minimal interventions it was realized that the problem stemmed from an older restoration that had been thinned original support and were glued new walnut panels in an unsuitable way.
