Recovery and restoration of the octagonal early-17th-century church with apse and bell tower. A recovery project with architect M. Busnelli
A careful intervention that restores stability and legibility to the building, bringing frescoes, details and historic layers back to light.
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To restore: to remedy the damage of time and of bad previous restorations. The Oratorio di S. Antonio in Melzo is an octagonal early-17th-century church with apse and bell tower, finally freed from a nineteenth-century farmstead that had been built up against it. The starting situation was critical: walls that had become unstable, a rotting roof, rising damp that had damaged plasters, frescoes and ornaments. The project, developed with arch. M. Busnelli, brought seventeenth-century frescoes back to light from under layers of distemper; on the façade, a line of grouting distinguishes the new matter from the original.
Starting situation. When they called us, a late-1800s farmstead built against the church had already been demolished, so the church finally returned to being isolated from the urban fabric. The walls that no longer leaned on the farmstead had, however, become unstable, and had accelerated the decay of the internal plasters. Much of the roof’s woodwork was rotting, water was getting in and there was a risk of collapse. A great deal of rising damp had also damaged the plasters and, with them, the frescoes and ornaments.
Urban importance. In these ancient, noble towns now absorbed into the Milanese hinterland, architecture like this is precious for keeping the urban identity. Visit the cultural-heritage record here.
To distinguish. It is better that one can understand what is original and what has been remade; for example, the new part of the façade is made with the same material as the old one, but the surface is set back by a few centimetres and a line of grouting marks the differentiation.
Frescoes, scrolls and cornices were waiting to be brought back to light from under layers of distemper. It is a slow-motion adventure: long, patient cleaning operations to find the original colours revealed, in many parts, surprising original seventeenth-century frescoes.
Details. Every restoration is a matter of care for the particulars; the matter (stone, brick, wood, concrete, plaster) is always at the centre of the problems and the solutions.
