14-CM-2017_Fossano, Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Juvenal, St. Dorerio, Reliquary of St. Juvenal

Facilitated description: 

 

The reliquary bust of St. Juvenal is a silver statue representing the head of St. Juvenal.
The reliquary is a statue that serves to contain objects important for religion.
Severino Dorerio made the statue in 1417.
The statue is preserved in the cathedral of Fossano.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the statue in 2017.
Restoration students also participated.
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to understand how the statue was made.
For example, they saw that the nose and left eye were added to repair damage to the statue.
The restorers cleaned the statue with chemicals to remove the dust and restorations of the past.
They cleaned the metal parts ruined due to contact with air.
They added parts of missing decoration on the miter (the bishop's hat).
They eventually laid out a protective product to protect the statue from the air.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The work on the reliquary bust of Saint Juvenal in Fossano Cathedral, commissioned by Ludovico d’Acaja to the goldsmith Severino Dorerio, was an opportunity for the Laboratory for the Restoration of Metals, Ceramics and Glass to study and restore a 15th-century work of goldsmithing. The project, realized thanks to the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Fossano, also saw the involvement of the students of the Degree Course in Conservation and Restoration of the specialization sector dedicated to metals for ordinary teaching activities. Particular attention has been paid to the identification of the execution techniques and to the reconstruction of the conservative history of the work, which has undergone numerous alterations due to its nature as a devotional object, and to numerous restoration interventions. The available historical data, compared with what emerged from technical observation and scientific analyses, made it possible to hypothesize the chronological sequence of the integration interventions based on the characteristics of the materials (different composition of the metal sheets, different radiopacity).

 

Intervention

A mechanical cleaning was performed on the artifact to eliminate incoherent deposits and a chemistry to remove the products used in previous restoration interventions. Subsequently, the oxidations and sulphides present on the silver surfaces were treated, taking care not to completely remove the patinas in order to preserve the historical appearance of the product. Finally, there were punctual consolidations and integrations of the missing decoration on the top of the machine gun.

 

Bibliography

M. Demmelbauer, L. Marino, The reliquary bust of St. Juvenal in Fossano Technical-scientific study, re-reading of historical sources and restoration, in ‘Kermes’, No 126,Lexis, Turin, 2023, pp. 19-26.