DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62783#0184
116
FRESCO PAINTING.
“ The damp of the walls (of the Campo Santo of Pisa) causes the
pictures to scale off; and the surrounding air impregnated with damp
and saline vapours is equally injurious to them. No great damage
will probably ensue for a few years; but we shall see one day,
as in the case of S. Girolamo di Lomi that the sirocco, prevailing in
the plains of Pisa, and confined within these extensive loggie,
(besides the injury done by them, and by the violence of men to the
intonaco, and the materials of the walls) will commit fresh havoc.”—
II. Pisa Illust. p. 16.
“ So Giotto going; to Pisa, executed at the end of one of the
facades of the Campo Santo, six large historical pictures in fresco,
taken from the history of the patient Job. And as he very judici-
ously considered that the marble of that part of the building where
he had to paint, was turned towards the sea and must therefore be
impregnated with salt, from the effects of the sirocco, that the wall
would damp, and give out a certain efflorescence, as the bricks
of Pisa generally do, and that therefore the colours and the pictures
would be tarnished and corroded; in order to preserve his pictures
as much as possible, he caused to be made, wherever he intended to
paint in fresco, an arricciato or intonaco, or plastering made of lime,
gesso, and pounded brick, mixed so nicely that the pictures which he
painted have been preserved up to this day ; and they would have
stood better, had it not been for the carelessness of the persons who
ought to have taken care of them, in allowing them to be much injur-
ed by the damp, because the neglect of any provision against damp,
which might easily have been made, was the cause that these pictures,
having suffered from the damp, have perished in several places; the
carnations have become black, and the intonaco has scaled off; be-
sides which it is the nature of gesso, when mixed with lime, to be-
come wet and corrupted ; whence it appears, it must necessarily
spoil the colours, although it appears at first to give them a good
and firm hold.” a—Vasari, Life of Giotto, vol. II, p. 75.
“ With regard to the destruction of the paintings of Giotto in the
Campo Santo of Pisa, the Canon Tosti, (MS. Dialogue Sopra 1’istoria
a It is rather singular that Vasari should assign the same cause both for the
preservation and the decay of the pictures; namely, by the mixture of lime,
gesso, and pounded brick. Vitruvius remarks that gesso must never be mixed
with lime.
FRESCO PAINTING.
“ The damp of the walls (of the Campo Santo of Pisa) causes the
pictures to scale off; and the surrounding air impregnated with damp
and saline vapours is equally injurious to them. No great damage
will probably ensue for a few years; but we shall see one day,
as in the case of S. Girolamo di Lomi that the sirocco, prevailing in
the plains of Pisa, and confined within these extensive loggie,
(besides the injury done by them, and by the violence of men to the
intonaco, and the materials of the walls) will commit fresh havoc.”—
II. Pisa Illust. p. 16.
“ So Giotto going; to Pisa, executed at the end of one of the
facades of the Campo Santo, six large historical pictures in fresco,
taken from the history of the patient Job. And as he very judici-
ously considered that the marble of that part of the building where
he had to paint, was turned towards the sea and must therefore be
impregnated with salt, from the effects of the sirocco, that the wall
would damp, and give out a certain efflorescence, as the bricks
of Pisa generally do, and that therefore the colours and the pictures
would be tarnished and corroded; in order to preserve his pictures
as much as possible, he caused to be made, wherever he intended to
paint in fresco, an arricciato or intonaco, or plastering made of lime,
gesso, and pounded brick, mixed so nicely that the pictures which he
painted have been preserved up to this day ; and they would have
stood better, had it not been for the carelessness of the persons who
ought to have taken care of them, in allowing them to be much injur-
ed by the damp, because the neglect of any provision against damp,
which might easily have been made, was the cause that these pictures,
having suffered from the damp, have perished in several places; the
carnations have become black, and the intonaco has scaled off; be-
sides which it is the nature of gesso, when mixed with lime, to be-
come wet and corrupted ; whence it appears, it must necessarily
spoil the colours, although it appears at first to give them a good
and firm hold.” a—Vasari, Life of Giotto, vol. II, p. 75.
“ With regard to the destruction of the paintings of Giotto in the
Campo Santo of Pisa, the Canon Tosti, (MS. Dialogue Sopra 1’istoria
a It is rather singular that Vasari should assign the same cause both for the
preservation and the decay of the pictures; namely, by the mixture of lime,
gesso, and pounded brick. Vitruvius remarks that gesso must never be mixed
with lime.