The ceramic panel of the Porta della Marina, which depicts the role of crossroads of Amalfi between East and West, returns to its original splendor after a major restoration. The work of the master Renato Rossi, one of the founding fathers of the art of majolica in Amalfi Coast, will be returned to the City in all its magnificence on Friday 26 January 2024 when the unveiling ceremony is scheduled to take place at the end of the presentation of the restoration works (17,30 pm at the Arsenale della Repubblica di Amalfi) which have involved, over the last few years, also the statue of Flavio Gioia and the commemorative plaques.
In fact, the restoration project conducted by a team of experts is part of a larger executive project of maintenance, restoration and enhancement of the architectural heritage emblem of the Ancient Maritime Republic prepared in 2022 by the Municipal Administration led by Mayor Daniele Milano.
The entire batch of interventions, which involved almost two years of intense work, will be illustrated to the citizens during the presentation of the final plan of the works by the mayor Daniele Milano, by the councilor delegated to cultural heritage, Enza Cobalto, by the architect Diego Guarino (director of the works) and by the restorers Lorenzo Morigi, Giancarlo Napoli and Luigi Criscuolo.
The panel describing the routes followed by the Amalfi galleys along the Mediterranean basin, a crossroads of peoples and cultures since the Middle Ages, has returned to occupy the wall on which it was installed since its creation, after every single piece of it had been subjected to consolidation processes as well as repair of too many chips.
"With the return to the City of Rossi's ceramic panel, which has been restored to its original polychrome beauty, the first phase of the process of safeguarding the artistic and architectural heritage of the City is completed, which also involved the statue of Flavio Gioia and the commemorative plaques," says the councilor responsible for cultural heritage, Enza Cobalto. "With this intervention, we are completing the timetable for the valorization of a work of art that contains significant and celebratory elements of our history."
Made in the 1950s, the ceramic masterpiece stands out not only for the historical synthesis of the glorious past of the ancient maritime republic but for the use of typically Mediterranean colours. The work of Rossi, who founded the first ceramic school in Salerno, exalts the greatness of Amalfi in the Middle Ages exactly in the period between the 10th and 11th centuries, that is, in the period of maximum splendor of the small and intrepid maritime republic.
Completely dismantled last year and subjected to a painstaking reconstruction of the parts damaged by the wear of time and climatic conditions, the majolica terracotta blow-up will return to tell tourists and citizens, through the extraordinary function of visual art, the greatness of the Ancient Maritime Republic which had commercial relations with the southern and north-eastern area represented in the ceramic panel.
The intervention plan conducted by a team of experts included the preliminary dusting and vacuuming of the panel and the subsequent dismantling of the removable and unstable elements. In a subsequent step, desalination washes were carried out before moving on to cleaning with surfactants and removal with demineralized water. The conservation phase of the majolica finally included the consolidation of the terracotta supports with ethyl silicate and nanosilica, filling with cocciopesto powder and NHL 3,5, pictorial integration with varnish colors and the application of a final protective layer.
The majestic panel installed at the entrance of the Porta della Marina, the ancient access to the city of Amalfi, not only depicts the naval power but also re-proposes a historical mention by Gabriele D'Annunzio taken from the fourth book "Laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi": "But those of Amalfi, to whom the long sword was the measure, went to a more distant homeland; for already they had a district and an oven and a bath and a warehouse and a fountain everywhere". At the bottom stands the motto of the Amalfitans, who were well-deserving in many interventions in defense of the Holy See as the First Maritime Republic of Italy: "Contra hostes fidei semper pugnavit Amalphis".
Article published on 22 January 2024 - 12:51
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