D40_CR_2022_Turin, Villa della Regina, Grand Rondeau Fountain

Facilitated description: 

 

The fountain of the Grand Rondeau is made up of 13 stone sculptures. 
The fountain was built between 1600 and 1700.
The fountain is located in the garden of Villa della Regina in Turin.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the fountain in 2022. 
The restoration was attended by the students of the restoration school of Venaria. 
The restorers studied the types of stone used to make the sculptures.
They studied the causes of the fountain's damage. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to study the organisms that infested the fountain. 
The restorers cleaned the fountain of harmful organisms and all the substances that had been deposited on the statues. 
They repositioned and fixed the parts that had come off. 
They replaced the groutings (restoration interventions of the past that serve to fill the stone gaps) with new groutings.
They put a protective product on the metal parts. 
In the end they closed the cracks of the stone with mortar. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

Restoration

The restoration of the fountain of the Grand Rondeau of Villa della Regina is part of a summer educational site by the Conservation and Restoration Center "La Venaria Reale". The aim of the construction site was to improve the conservation conditions of the 13 statues of the fountain from a material and aesthetic point of view and to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the artifacts, useful for outlining a specific intervention plan. For this reason, investigations have been carried out for the identification of the different lithotypes and the main causes of degradation are identified (conservation environment, mechanical traumas, previous restoration interventions no longer functional).
As the surfaces of the statues were affected by a biological attack, sampling was carried out before and during the intervention. In this way, it was possible to investigate the nature of the biodeteriogenic attack and to develop the most suitable disinfection methodology. The damaged surfaces were then treated with biocidal product and cleaned.
Subsequently, the statues affected by phenomena of disintegration and detachments were treated and the detached fragments relocated and secured by gluing and piping. The unsuitable groutings from a previous restoration have been replaced and the exposed metal brackets and pins have been treated and protected. Finally, the small cracks and gaps were compensated materially with specially formulated mortars.