In May 2005 the Casa Zuccari on the corner of Via Giuseppe Giusti and Via Gino Capponi, diagonally opposite the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (KHI), opened after complete restoration and rehabilitation.
In many respects this event was a source of particular pleasure; it was in no small part thanks to the impressive donations made by members of the Friends of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz that the Casa Zuccari – a rare surviving example of a Florentine artist’s house and hence of great cultural worth – could be preserved from ruin. Many eminent artists lived in the house over the centuries. In 1520 Andrea del Sarto, Florence’s leading painter of the high Renaissance, built his home on this land. After his death, Federico Zuccari (1540-1609) bought the house in 1577, when he was responsible for completing the painting of the dome of the Florence cathedral, a task begun by Vasari. Zuccari altered the house and decorated the ground-floor room with unique frescos. Documents show that once Zuccari had moved to Rome, the house’s owners included the painters Giovanni Battista Paggi, Jacopo Vignali and Baldassare Franceschini, known as “il Volterrano”. Alongside the complete rehabilitation and full structural survey of the Casa Zuccari and partial reconstruction of its original outward form, the restoration of the frescos by Federico Zuccari in the Sala Terrena and of frescos by an as yet unknown artist in the room above were crucial to the project. Zuccari’s frescos, which he painted in 1579, were cleaned and subjected to carefully conducted conservation measures, and they now appear in all their original intensity. The painting in the middle of the ceiling is an allegory of time, surrounded by day and night, past and future. Other sections depict the four seasons, times of the day as well as the corresponding signs of the Zodiac. The wall arches are decorated with scenes from the fables of the Greek poet Æsop. In the lunettes, however, the artist painted landscapes, scenes from mythology and his own family life. The family scenes show the preparation of a roast and the artist sharing a meal with his wife while his pupils are in the background, deep in study. Apart from their artistic quality, the frescos also provide an extremely interesting indication of how Zuccari saw and perceived himself. At that time it was on the one hand patricians, who decorated their palaces with intricate paintings; for non-aristocrats this would have been an unusual thing to do. On the other hand in addition to the allegorical depictions, there are those such as of Zuccari’s family life that provide an insight into his role as a patriarch and teacher.
The link that Zuccari promoted between life and teaching finds its parallels in the history of the foundation of the KHI. In 1897 Heinrich Brockhaus opened the newly founded institute in his private rooms. Since that time the KHI has seen its task as providing a place of meeting and scholarly exchange that gave support to leading researchers from Germany and abroad and encouraged the next generation of researchers. Thanks to structural alterations the Casa Zuccari now has room for individual and group projects and for international meetings. The move of some sections from the Palazzo Capponi Incontri and the Casa Rosselli has also brought some reduction in the chronic shortage of space caused by the ever growing size of the photographic collection and particularly of the library. The IT section and administration have moved; similarly the digitalisation project, photographic negatives archive and the photographic laboratory have moved out of the photographic library.
On completion of the work and the opening of Casa Zuccari, Pietro Ruschi, Professor at the University of Udine and an experienced architectural historian (his restoration projects include the Old Sacristy at the San Lorenzo church in Florence) kindly agreed to answer a few questions.
Interview with Professor Pietro Ruschi (December 2004)
Professor Ruschi, in 1987 the Friends of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, with the help of private donations and generous support from Deutsche Bank, acquired the Casa Zuccari and officially handed it over to the KHI a year later. When did the restoration work begin and how was it tackled?
In three phases. The first was carried out at the end of the 1980s and involved repairing the roof. Soon afterwards the outer facades were restored, that’s to say those that face Via Capponi and Via Giusti. And finally the last phase that started at the end of 2001 and is now nearing completion. This covers the whole building, meaning both the outside and the inside.
Which of these phases was the most demanding?
The period 2002 to 2004. We are now at the end of the work and the house will open in May.
In what state of repair was the Casa Zuccari when you started the restoration?
The Casa Zuccari was in a deplorable condition. Since the counts Acquarone acquired it no maintenance had been done on the house. It was therefore quite dilapidated, although there were no exceptionally serious problems regarding the structural soundness of the building. When they owned the building the Acquarones made alternations mainly to the house’s interior. We kept some of them because they were irreversible and had acquired historical value in their own right, but some we removed so we could return the house to its original state. The house’s interior is mainly in the style of the 19th century – apart of course from the room that Federico Zuccari painted and the room from the 17th century on the first floor – and we based the restoration on this style during the refurbishment.
How many people are involved in the restoration and what is the make up of the group of restorers?
Basically the restoration has been entrusted to three engineers: Bruno Daddi is project manager and responsible for structural matters, Stefano Mazzoni Pallecchi is project manager and responsible for systems engineering, and myself. I am responsible for the architecture, in other words for the restoration of the building and frescos.
Was work on the different parts of the project carried out simultaneously?
We started all the work at the same time, partly because some of the problems were common to the different areas. So we worked in all areas, but for different lengths of time. Some jobs were accomplished more quickly than others. The last thing to be completed will be the room with Zuccari’s frescos because the work calls for a particularly meticulous and prudent approach.
Could you describe the restoration of the Zuccari frescos? What problems did you encounter?
There were all sorts of problems with the frescos. Some had been restored in the past, but those restorations are now showing signs of ageing, such as the discolouration caused by high levels of oxidation and sulpherisation. Problems also arose because the rooms had been closed for a long time which had caused the formation of moisture and resultant crystallisation of salts. Moreover, there were a large number of tiny abrasions that affected the stability of some of the plaster. Finally – and this is probably the most interesting point – of all the things that were revealed during the restoration of the room, architectural paintings were found under the plaster – one perspective providing a view that is fundamental to understanding the vault fresco. However we knew of their existence because this decoration had once been visible and also been photographed. Later they had been completely painted over; perhaps they had been in such poor repair that little attention had been paid to them during the previous restoration. The current restoration will be comprehensive, so we’re interested in the vaulting as well as the walls. And last but not least we found an old walled-in window with the remains of a decoration of fake polychrome marble, that nobody had been aware of and which had been closed up as early as the 18th century.
Apart from Zuccari’s frescos, did you discover any others?
In the corridor we were able to uncover simple decorative paintings that dated from the 19th century. Also, frescos were found above the room that Zuccari had painted. These were ceiling paintings dating from the beginning of the 17th century and were done by an artist whom nobody has been able to identify so far. They had always been clearly visible on the ceiling, although in a poor condition and very dirty. In comparison the walls had been fully whitewashed, although you could see that under the layer of paint there were traces of decorations from the 18th century, that we are now again uncovering.
You must also bear in mind that radical alterations were made to the house in the 19th century. The whole staircase is from the 19th century, and even the height of the mezzanine floor was changed. Indoors a major “revision” changed the original state of the house. Even the room painted by Zuccarai had been changed, in that the two patio doors visible today were not there. There was simply a single window in the middle of the wall which gave a view of the garden.
Were any paintings from after Zuccari’s time discovered – apart from the frescos on the first floor that can perhaps be attributed to the Genoa painter Giovanni Battista Paggi?
No. This question remains unanswered – if at all – in relation to the architectural alterations. Now that the restoration work has finished we can start considering the matter. Otherwise nothing supports crediting the first-floor frescos to Paggi.
Which difficulties did you face during the restoration work?
We had all sorts of problems. It isn’t easy to summarise them in a short interview… We had serious structural problems with uneven distribution of load and the dispersal of load forces, some walls with poor distribution of load, and structural failure. Furthermore for reasons of safety within the building a series of measures had to be taken which should neither be visible nor impair the original appearance of the house. This work was awkward and time consuming. Systems engineering has now become very complex if a building is to be used for a modern purpose, even in a case like this where luckily we had to equip just a few meeting rooms and offices. There were also a lot of architectural problems. We did not have any major difficulties regarding the methods to be used, because things were pretty clear cut. However certain decisions had to be made, the sort of decisions you always have to make. For example we reconstructed the original layout according to the initial floor plan, with the entrance area now reflecting the form dating from the 19th century. We moved the lift to another area because as built by the Acquarones it took space from some of the rooms and obstructed the entrance. There were also some problems with the frescos. Here we worked with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, that monitored the work throughout the restoration. The work was done by a company that specialises in restoration of paintings.
What for you was the nicest or most exciting incident during the restoration? Any unexpected discoveries…?
The unexpected find, if you want to put it that way, was discovering an underground room directly beneath the room decorated with the Zuccari frescos. It is underneath a vault that is supported by the ground, as was the style in the past. It is interesting to note that over the centuries it had occurred to nobody to remove the earth, so the original vaulting still rested on the original earth. When we dug it out we discovered the room, and it gives us a fascinating insight into architectural history.
When was the cellar built?
When the house still belonged to the painter Andrea del Sarto, it was smaller and not as extensive as it is today. I would therefore suggest that the room was built during Zuccari’s time. Significantly – either because Zuccari went to Rome or for some other reason – the room was never excavated and remained filled with the original earth. That was perhaps the most surprising discovery. Another interesting find was the window in the room painted by Zuccari. Finally the frescos were the most exciting thing. Currently we are conducting a series of perspective studies on computer (digital imaging, etc). Our plan is to reconstruct the room in three dimensions to adhere to its ideal design, just as Zuccari had depicted it with the aid of painting to create the illusion of space.
Clearly every job is different. Nevertheless, how would you classify the Casa Zuccari restoration compared to the work you’ve done in the past? Were there any major differences?
Every restoration is completely different. I don’t want to bore you with stories of my earlier restorations… I’m convinced that fundamental to any restoration is exploration. That means that you have to try to probe everything you can so as to acquaint yourself with and understand the building. That is your starting point. Only when you’ve become acquainted with the architecture are you able to start your planning. Because one of the risks during restoration is that you tend to be superficial and that you take things for granted or operate on the basis of facile assumptions. The main problem is knowledge. You must understand, decipher, constantly monitor, study and only then take action or sometimes not, because restoration does not always involve your doing something, it can sometimes mean doing nothing.
There is no doubt that this project is different to all my past restorations, as I said, and for many reasons. Among others because – as I’ve already hinted – major alterations were made in the 1850s and 1860s at the instigation of the Acquarones. We therefore had to take a more construction-based approach compared to other restorations. For example the restoration of the Old Sacristy at St Lorenzo I managed was extremely complex but exclusively a work of conservation where the main challenge was to reveal what was there and preserve it. In this case, however, there was a lot more rebuilding involved. We had to analyse and reconstruct a building that had been completed and features several different historical building phases. In doing so we had to show regard for the most recent alterations but not clash with older parts of the building so that we could reconstruct the whole house in a way that was as seamless and coherent as possible in order to re-establish the clarity and symmetry of form of the whole building.
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