Restorations

After the renovation and rearrangement of the exhibition itinerary, inaugurated in December 2021, the Municipal Art Gallery of Faenza, thanks to the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region, has started a long-term conservation process which involves the disinfestation treatment of all the works on wooden support and the restoration of six panel paintings from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. As regards the panel paintings, these are some of the oldest testimonies coming from the churches of Faenza and dating back to the fertile period in which every city in Romagna hosted workshops of painters, decorators and craftsmen who with their works contributed significantly to the identity of these territories.

The first restoration interventions specifically concerned:

• the “Madonna with Child, Saint John the Evangelist and the Blessed Filippo Bertoni” by the Master of the Bertoni altarpiece;
• the “Christ carrying the cross” by Marco Palmezzano;
• the “Madonna with the Child enthroned between the saints Bernardino da Siena, Giovanni Battista, Celestino Papa and Antonio da Padova” (Celestine altarpiece);
• the “Madonna with the Infant Saint John and angels; Saints Hippolytus and Benedict; Saints Lawrence and Romualdo; the eternal Father among angels” (Polyptych of the Camaldolese) by Giovan Battista Bertucci the Elder;
• the “Madonna with the Child and the saints John the Baptist, Benedict, Romualdo, John the Evangelist, Jerome and a holy bishop” by Biagio d’Antonio;
• the “Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria with Saint Joseph” by Luca Longhi.

The intervention on the Bertoni Altarpiece allowed, among other things, the loan of the work to the “Renaissance in Ferrara” exhibition. Ercole de’ Roberti and Lorenzo Costa”, set up at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara from 18 February to 19 June 2023.