The Vatican’s Gallery of Maps has reopened after restoration work lasting four years.
Created in little over two years, the gallery was painted by Flemish landscape artists Matthjis and Paul Bril and Italians Gerolamo Muziano and Cesare Nebbia. The gallery was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1580 and the project was entrusted to Ignazio Danti, a Dominican friar, cosmographer and mathematician. Divided by region, the detailed maps depict Italy’s major cities, as well as the ports of Genoa, Venice, Ancona and Civitavecchia.
The museum space is home to more than 30 frescoed maps that show Italy as it was in the late sixteenth century.
At the official presentation, director of the Vatican Museum, Antonio Paolucci, commented that it had been “a long and complex restoration”.
Francesco Prantera, the restoration manager, commented, “What is most important in this work is the return of colour: being able to remove that murky look that the maps had, due to alterations in the glue that was used to cover them, and the plasticism of the surfaces, almost as if they were a 3D, albeit a 3D from 430 years ago.”
The restoration was financed by the California Patrons of the Arts and consisted of innovative techniques used by the Vatican Museums.
