In Rome, Bernini's blessed returns to shine

(ANSA) - ROME, JANUARY 30 - Carrara marble that recovers candor and shine after twenty years, the face of the beat has found all its magic, as well as the membranes contorted by the spasm of ecstasy, the clothes, the drape that covers the bed, even the lace of the pillow. While all around the gilding of the stuccos almost dazzles and the delightful little ones, which the great Bernini wanted to fly playful under the canvas that portrays Sant'Anna, finally return to show their face.
Thanks to six months of cleaning and restoration carried out by the Special Superintendency of Rome in agreement with the Fondo Edificidi cult, the amazing Albertoni Chapel shines again in the church of San Francesco a Ripa, in Trastevere, which an intervention by the great sculptor, then already 76 years old, transformed in a magical place, a Baroque masterpiece, thanks to architecture, sculpture and its unsurpassed mastery with light. "A delicate restoration that combines protection and protection with an improvement for use", explains the superintendent Daniela Porro, underlining that the works, financed by the superintendency and entrusted to the restorer Elisabetta Zatti, cost 39 thousand euros in total.
For this commission, which had been asked by Prince Angelo Paluzzi and which the sculptor completed with incredible speed, Bernini did not want to be paid. "Maybe because he needed to be helped for his brother, exiled after being raped," explains the historian official of the art superintendenza Carlo Mastroianni. the delicate work of cleaning the marble, explains the restorer, highlighted Bernini's typical way of working, who used to work the marble of his statues with different finishes, from polished to rough, just to allow the light to highlight its chiaroscuro, "as if he were using a brush". (HANDLE).