Veronica Abenza

The paintings from Sant Esteve de Andorra la Vella constitute a paradigmatic example among the pictorial ensembles that were part of the removal campaigns in the twenties of the last century. Like other Andorran murals, frontals, and altarpieces (Engolasters, Encamp, Prats, Santa Coloma, Sant Romà de Vila, and Sant Romà de les Bons), their journey from Andorra and the separation of the cycles with different destinations resulted in significant losses of this rich cultural heritage. Unlike these cases, which were eventually reunited and preserved in a small number of safeguard institutions, only the murals of Santa Coloma share with those of Sant Esteve the vicissitudes of a long, heterogeneous, and even fortuitous itinerary that, in this case, concluded with the disaggregation of the ensemble among several museums and private collections. The fundamental objective of this contribution is to trace the fragmentation journey of the cycle that originally decorated the apse of the Andorran Romanesque church, analyzing the different ways in which the preserved fragments were musealized and the resulting gaps from their multiple displacements. All this will allow us to offer a proposal for the reconstruction of the pictorial program in the original space of the temple and also to reflect on the heritage preserved in situ and the ways for its possible interpretation and revaluation."

Giulia Arcidiacono

The repertoire of Sicilian pictorial remnants from the 12th to the 14th centuries includes fragments of mosaics and frescoes from eastern Sicily, either preserved in situ or removed for conservation and collection purposes. These remnants of lost monumental decoration are a clear testament to the enduring historical ties between Sicily and Byzantium, highlighting in particular the profound influence of the Byzantine artistic tradition in the eastern part of the island. Through selected examples, this study aims to elucidate their cultural references and production contexts. It will also examine the circumstances of their relocation, restoration, and subsequent display in museums to reconstruct the broken thread of their history.

Xavier Barral i Altet

The discovery, valorization, study, removal, and musealization of the Romanesque mural paintings in the Boí Valley at the beginning of the 20th century is a very late phenomenon compared to the European context of interest in medieval monumental polychromy and mural paintings of Romanesque buildings. In France, for example, since the mid-19th century, Romanesque mural paintings had been discovered and published, and copies had been made, which formed the basis of what would later become the Musée des Monuments Français in Paris. At that time, the main debate revolved around the supporters of completing the mural paintings discovered in the buildings, versus those who argued that archaeological remains should be left as they were, without adding anything. These controversies were reflected in Catalonia (Ripoll). By the end of the 19th century, a period of the first discoveries and publications of Romanesque mural paintings in Catalonia (Pedret, Sant Martí de Fenollar, Sant Pere de Terrassa), the first general treaties on the subject were being prepared in France (P. Gélis-Didot and H. Laffillée, 1903). Meanwhile, in Italy, the techniques of stacco and strappo for the removal of mural paintings had been consolidated, destined for both museums and the trade and private collections.

Elizabeth Bolman

The dry climate of Upper Egypt has preserved notable remains of domestic and religious architecture from Late Antiquity. Its most prominent monument is a church from the late 5th century at the Red Monastery, near Sohag. The church, part of a long tradition of elite architecture, is a monumental basilica with an elaborate trilobed chapel. The interior of the eastern end includes the best-preserved example of architectural polychromy in painting (tempera and encaustic on architectural elements) that has survived on a large scale since the Greek, Roman, and early Byzantine periods. A notable conservation project that lasted more than a decade will be briefly discussed. Although there would be countless churches with monumental painted decoration, domestic architecture also incorporated extensive polychromy. Excavations have revealed numerous decorated houses in the oases of Dakhla and Kharga (Western Desert of Egypt) dating from the 3rd century to the mid-4th century. The aesthetics of the time, often referred to as the Jewel Style, imposed complex and varied areas of ornaments and figures. The links between the decoration of churches and that of elite homes suggest a widespread taste for such aesthetics.

Giorgio Bonsanti

Separating a mural from the wall is primarily a technical matter. There are several ways to achieve this, and each has been experimented with numerous times over the centuries. However, it was soon realized that the technical solutions are only part of the problem because the removal also brings with it consequences of a historical, ethical, economic, and legal nature, especially concerning relocations. As early as 1825, the Venetian scholar and politician Leopoldo Cicognara detailed them in a surprisingly current document. The aim of this contribution is to propose a brief global review of the issue.

Jordi Camps

The exceptional series of Romanesque mural painting sets at the Museu Nacional ("the apses") singularize and determine the exhibition itinerary of the rooms where they are displayed, due to their dimensions and the space formed by the structures in which they are installed. Likewise, their unanimous recognition also lies in the artistic quality of a large part of the works, such as Santa Maria d'Àneu, Sant Climent de Taüll, and the chapter house of Sijena, among others. The collection originates from an exceptional episode: the campaign of removal and relocation from their original locations to the museum carried out in the years 1919-23. Since then, it has experienced several movements and installations, a faithful reflection of the institution's history. It is a history of fragmentations (and defragmentations), reunions, expansions, and revisions that have occurred up to the present day, a hundred years later. Both these events and the pictorial sets in their historical, iconographic, and technical aspects have been widely studied and appreciated, especially from the perspective of specialists. Thus, there is an exhibition history that has had to face the challenges of each moment with the corresponding means and methods. Today, in a world of accelerated changes in all areas, the challenges of the collection (and its curators) balance between the obligation to act in the field of rigorous scientific research and the responsibility to create narratives and dissemination channels in order to maintain the essential link with the public. Many efforts are directed towards providing the public with a fruitful experience, never forgetting an unavoidable function: the conservation of the artworks.

Manuel Castiñeiras

The pictorial ensembles of Santa Maria d'Àneu and Santa Maria de Cap d'Aran exemplify, like few others, the complex history of the rediscovery of Catalan Romanesque painting throughout the 20th century. They intertwine historical-artistic interest, the art market, and the fascination of modernism and avant-garde movements with medieval art, as well as the success of museums that evoke the intimate atmosphere of a Romanesque church. Àneu undoubtedly constitutes the brightest chapter of this rediscovery, with the drawings and annotations of Domènech i Montaner (1904), the publication of the paintings by Josep Pijoan (1910), their subsequent removal, relocation, and exhibition under the tutelage of the Junta de Museus in the Museu d'Art i Arqueologia de Barcelona (1920-1923), and the subsequent enthusiasm of avant-garde painters. In contrast, Santa Maria de Cap d'Aran represents the darker version of that story, with a late discovery (1930) and removal (1941), at the hands of the antiques trade, which caused fragmentation, sale, and dispersion of the ensemble in different collections and museum institutions (The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum; Museu de Maricel, Sitges) and even a change of name - Sant Joan de Tredòs - which concealed its true origin. However, the aura that Catalan Romanesque painting had acquired among contemporary artists explains why some fragments of Cap d'Aran ended up in the private collection of Antoni Tàpies himself, where they were cherished alongside the portraits of El Fayum. Two continents, in geography (Europe and America) and in support (immovable and movable heritage), share this complex and convoluted inheritance, in which the study, reconstruction of the original arrangement of these ensembles, and their enjoyment by the viewer constitute a challenge for the current art historian. In this sense, Àneu and Cap d'Aran, due to the thematic similarity of their iconographic program, their belonging to the same artistic current - the Pedret or Àneu-Burgal circle - and some peculiarities of their mise en scène, allow us to reflect on the original creation of sacred settings in Romanesque Catalonia, the rich interaction between images, liturgical furniture, and architectural space, as well as the unsettling Italo-Byzantine origin of their aesthetic and thematic repertoire.

Roberta Cerone

Great cycles adorned the main mendicant churches of Rieti, in Lazio: San Francisco, Santo Domingo, and San Agustín, important institutions in a city that in the Middle Ages constituted one of the main centers of the Papal State, often chosen by the popes as an alternative seat to Rome. At various times in the 20th century, many frescoes from these churches were removed and are now partially displayed in various museum venues. The most important cycle, dating from the early 14th century, decorated the presbytery of the friars' church based on the stories of Francis inspired by Giotto's famous cycle in Assisi. These paintings are emblematic of a frequent situation in the Italian peninsula: the need to remove them for preservation, first in the context of Napoleonic repression, later due to the laws suppressing congregations and religious orders in 1866, when the change in functions of worship buildings to other uses inexorably led them to ruin. We will review the historical events that led to the discovery of the paintings, their removal, and forgetfulness, to the still provisional attempts at partial ordering. We will also try to reinterpret the murals from an iconographic and stylistic point of view, to restore them, at least virtually, to the liturgical space for which they were conceived.

Luca Ciancabilla

Between the second half of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, complete cycles of detached frescoes began to arrive at Italian (and European) museums. Since then, in addition to the usual fragments and individual scenes extracted from more extensive mural decorations, entire apses, chapels, church vaults, or rooms from historic buildings began to be exhibited in museums. This brought with it problems related to conservation and, therefore, the exhibition of monumental paintings in often inadequate architectural environments to accommodate them (and, consequently, to valorize them). However, it was primarily in the decades following, especially after World War II, when improvements in extraction techniques, as well as the reorganization of many collections of public museums, favored unprecedented decontextualizations in terms of size and complexity. These developments had a significant impact on modern museumology and museography. It was a time that marked the history of museums, and today it seems very distant, not only because there are no longer—or almost no longer—detachments, but above all because those detachments, which were once avant-garde, are increasingly less able to attract the public's taste. This has led to a new stage in the history of exhibiting detached mural pictorial heritage removed from its original context.

Anna Maria D’Achille

In 1913, on the occasion of the 16th Centenary of the Edict of Constantine, the remains of 12th-century mural paintings were discovered on the baroque vaults of the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome. Fifty years later, in 1968, Guglielmo Matthiae carried out a preservation intervention that involved removing the best-preserved parts of the cycle and exhibiting them for the first time. Both speakers will traverse this long history using the written and photographic documentation preserved in the archives of Rome and that of the restorer Arnolfo Angelo Crucianelli. They will also address the historical-artistic aspects of this great pictorial ensemble, both from the perspective of its cultural roots and its iconographic program.

Ioannis Eliades

Following the Turkish invasion of 1974 and the ongoing occupation, over 500 churches were looted, between 15,000 and 20,000 icons were stolen, and fragments of mural paintings and mosaics were detached and sold abroad, while others were destroyed. Since 1979, the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus have received information about looting of ecclesiastical heritage and several cases have been investigated. These efforts have contributed to the repatriation of several artworks that are now exhibited in the Byzantine Museum Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia. The most significant cases are the two fresco compositions from the Antiphonitis church near Kyrenia (16th century), with over 100 fragments, and the frescoes from the apse and dome of the chapel of St. Euphemianos in the village of Lysi (13th century), with 36 fragments, assembled by The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. In the Byzantine Museum, there are also other repatriated fragments from the church of St. Solomoni in Komi tou Gialou (9th century), the church of Panagia Pergaminiotissa in Akanthou (12th century), the church of Panagia Apsinthiotissa (12th and 13th centuries), and the church of Panagia in Askeia (15th century), while others come from unidentified churches.

Grazia Maria Fachechi

In recent decades, historical research has sought to bridge some of the gaps created between artworks and their origins, often providing a comprehensive understanding of the original context. The new 3D technology allows us to obtain much more than a written description or a simple graphic recreation, thus leaving future generations with an effective memory of culturally complex systems that are now fragmented and no longer accessible. Meanwhile, the interaction between humanities and digital heritage continues to call for deeper reflections and new insights. Among the 438 artworks presented by Lionello Venturi in "Pitture italiane in America" (1931), there are two detached frescoes preserved at the Worcester Art Museum. Originally, they were part of a series of religious frescoes painted around 1295-1300 in a convent of Clarisses located very close to Spoleto. The work, with its complex and articulated iconography, executed by an anonymous master, is of such quality that Roberto Longhi described it as "The splendid series of the Palazze of Spoleto" (1957). Most of the frescoes were detached in the 1920s, and between 1924 and 1931, some fragments and entire scenes were acquired by museums in the American cities of Boston, Bryn Athin, Cambridge, Hartford, and Worcester. In 1964, another scene was detached, and the remaining sinopias are now exhibited at the Museo Nazionale del Ducato di Spoleto alongside other fragments found later. This contribution aims to present the results of a project aimed at virtually recomposing a split cultural heritage and restoring its overall appearance, placing it in its historical context, and creating appropriate traditional and multimedia tools that allow enjoying the works as if they were still together in the same place and in their original arrangement.

Tiziana Franco

Presentation of the paintings from the oratory of San Miguel in the church of San Nazario and San Celso (10th-12th centuries) in their current arrangement at the Museum of Frescoes Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle in Verona, and proposal for digital recomposition in the original context. This study will be accompanied by others related to mural paintings removed from the Verona area, dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, which, although of great interest, are currently not displayed in museums and are in conditions of limited accessibility.

Giulia Gaibisso

As part of a broader research on the rock church of San Vito Vecchio in Gravina di Puglia, this intervention aims to reconstruct the events surrounding the restoration and removal campaign of its paintings, focusing on the particular success of its exhibition during the 1950s and based on the hypothesis, conceived by Cesare Brandi, of establishing a museum for the hermit crypts of Apulia for their definitive location in the city of Lecce.

Manuela Gianandrea

The intervention aims to examine the mural paintings of the exterior oratory of the Basilica of San Adriano in the Forum and those of room VI ("Marian oratory") in the underground areas of Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome. These are two early medieval contexts that seem appropriate to reconsider, both concerning the treatment of the original sacred space and the removal of the paintings—in the 1930s and 1960s, respectively—and their subsequent reconstruction in the rooms of the Crypta Balbi Museum.

Antonio Iacobini

In 1913, on the occasion of the 16th Centenary of the Edict of Constantine, the remains of 12th-century mural paintings were discovered on the Baroque vaults of the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome. Fifty years later, in 1968, Guglielmo Matthiae carried out a preservation intervention that involved removing the best-preserved parts of the cycle and exhibiting them for the first time. Both speakers will explore this long history using the written and photographic documentation preserved in the archives of Rome and that of the restorer Arnolfo Angelo Crucianelli. They will also address the historical-artistic aspects of this significant pictorial ensemble, both from the perspective of its cultural roots and its iconographic program.

Sophia Kalopissi-Verti

The Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens houses several mural paintings that have been recovered from buildings that were once adorned, either because they were in ruins or in danger, or because in certain cases it was necessary to separate the painted layers. Except for a civil building from the 5th-6th century, all the frescoes had decorated religious spaces. They have been integrated into the thematic exhibitions of the museum following a more or less chronological order. Thus, individual mural paintings from Citera and Naxos, among others, are displayed in the "Cult and Art" section alongside icons and sculptures. Similarly, the "Attica: a Byzantine province" section includes frescoes removed from the chapels of Spelia Pentelis (1233/34). The significant mural paintings from the Episkopi church in Evrytania, consisting of four layers dating from the 9th, 11th, 13th, and 17th centuries, which were removed before the building was submerged by the waters of a newly constructed dam, are exhibited in a separate space that recalls the iconographic arrangement in the church.

Santiago Manzarbeitia

The controversial inclusion in 1950 of the Romanesque murals from the hermitage of the Vera Cruz in Maderuelo in the Museo Nacional del Prado, followed in 1957 by the deposit of the lower paintings from the hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga, contributed to shaping the development of a museological discourse on Spanish medieval painting, new and parallel to the paradigmatic one of the Royal Collection since the museum's foundation in 1819. The evolution and museographic update of both sets, completed in 2010, as well as the subsequent reproduction in situ of the Segovian murals, are examples of successive efforts to contextualize both Castilian Romanesque pictorial sets.

Mercè Marquès

The essential study of the materials that constitute a pictorial work —prior to a conservation and restoration intervention—, the discoveries made during intervention processes, as well as comparative analysis with other works, provide essential information for understanding the pictorial ensemble. Particularly relevant is the case of the church of Sant Climent de Taüll, where complete scenes have been preserved in situ and the deep pictorial layers in the removed areas have been recovered. Its study has allowed us to understand the methodology of creating the work and the aesthetic intention of its creators. Conservation and restoration interventions have revealed the stratigraphic sequence of the different decorative ensembles and have uncovered pictorial decorations that adorned the church in previous periods. The post-restoration study, carried out in collaboration with the Conservation-Restoration Department at the MNAC, has helped to link the painting present in the church with the removed and preserved painting in the museum.

Geoffrey Meyer Fernandez

The church of Abu Ghosh (Emmaus), built by the Hospitallers, is famous for its mural paintings restored during the last decade of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century. Attributed to artists with Byzantine training active during the third quarter of the 12th century, they constitute the most extensive mural cycle preserved from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291). Recent research has shown how the fathers of the Latin church used Byzantine art to enhance their own sanctity and prestige. Focusing on the painters, this intervention aims to demonstrate their ability to adapt to a Romanesque building, as well as to the demands of their patrons.

Simona Moretti

The paintings in the rock-cut chapel known as the Cave of the Angels (Grotta degli Angeli) in Magliano Romano (Rome), dating from the 11th or 12th century, were discovered in the early 20th century. According to the preserved remains, it is a brief cycle depicting the infancy of Jesus (nativity and announcement to the shepherds, adoration of the Magi, presentation in the temple), figures of saints, and the figure of Christ in a tondo between archangels. Much of the paintings were removed in 1939 to save them; they were laid flat and transferred to Rome, first to the Corsini Gallery and in 1949 to the National Museum of the Palazzo di Venezia. In the 1970s, it was decided to reassemble the chapel exactly as the restorers had reconstructed it in another location in the museum (the paintings regained the curvature of the room for which they had been created). In 1994, new restoration work was carried out, and the paintings were returned to Magliano Romano to be placed in the parish church, where they remain today. The aim of this work is to analyze the decisions made by the General Directorate and the restorers during the process regarding the pictorial cycle and to investigate the relationship of the inhabitants of Magliano Romano with these medieval paintings that document a secular and possibly local commission.

Juan Antonio Olañeta

After their removal in 1953, the various fragments of the Romanesque mural paintings from Surp and Isavarre were put up for sale on the international market by J. Bardolet and J. Gudiol i Ricart. As a consequence, both sets ended up dispersed among different museums and private collections. Some of the panels still remain unknown to specialists, making their study and understanding difficult. However, occasionally some of these works come to light, as has recently happened with three panels from Isavarre, two from Surp, and one from Cap d'Aran. These panels belonged to the collection of the Swiss economist Arthur Wilhelm, were on loan, between 1962 and 2008, to the Kunstmuseum in Basel, and are currently in a private Swiss collection. In this presentation, we will focus on two of these panels, those of the paintings in the lower part of the quarter sphere of the apse of Sant Iscle and Santa Victòria of Surp, unpublished in local historiography, which we have had the opportunity to photograph and study. They depict the bull of Luke and the lion of Mark. Both pieces not only fill a physical gap but also a gap in knowledge, as they provide new data about the lineage of this interesting ensemble.

Nuria Oriols

Through the chemical analysis of microsamples of paint from the central apse of Sant Climent de Taüll, defined as the work of an extraordinary anonymous master, we aimed to assess to what extent their technique aligns with or deviates from the recipes found in various medieval treatises, including the Montpellier manuscript Liber diversarum arcium or the Hermeneia text, which embodies the Byzantine pictorial tradition. Our comparison focused on the representation of faces and garments, revealing a clear influence of these treatises on the creation process of the work, both in geometric composition, drawing, and in the color mixtures present in the overlapping layers of polychromy, with materials similar to those used in Romanesque frontal pieces. The analytical results confirm that the first layers were painted on a still wet lime and sand mortar, while the final layers were applied dry. From the comparative analysis between materials and medieval texts, we deduce a possible composition for the debated color called prasinius, with tonalities and uses similar to the color referred to as verdaccio by Ceninni.

Anna Oriols

The paintings of San Vicenç de Cardona are exceptional from every perspective: their location, in a portico that opens to one of the most notable churches of the early Romanesque period, of which it forms an extraordinary setting (the imposing castle of the powerful House of Cardona, in central Catalonia), and profiles and circumstances that set them apart from the more popular cases in the Catalan Romanesque painting panorama. Absent in early studies on the subject, their removal was late, and despite being part of the collection of the Museu Nacional, their historiographical fortune has been less than that of the Pyrenean sets preserved in this and other museums. In 2017, a pioneering technique once again covered the walls that had been left bare for over half a century with a faithful copy.

Giovanni Pescarmona

The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate the effectiveness of digital art history tools and methodologies in researching the art history related to medieval frescoes that have been detached. These unique examples often tell a story of movement, dispersal, conservation, and traumatic events (restoration and manipulation). Digital visualization tools can help generate new and previously inaccessible data and metadata to enrich existing artworks and pose new questions, potentially leading to exciting discoveries. Computer-based virtual visualization environments can also assist modern scholars in capturing the original meaning of images in their historical context, which has often been destroyed or heavily manipulated over time. These broad and potentially generalizable topics will be explored through the analysis of a case study drawn from the author's doctoral thesis: the detached medieval frescoes depicting the Triumph of Death and Hell, painted by Andrea di Cione in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. These monumental paintings were originally located on the right side of the church nave and underwent a series of traumatic interventions: first, obliteration and fragmentation during the Renaissance due to the church interior's renovation carried out by Vasari in 1566, and later, the rediscovery and detachment of the frescoes. Currently, the frescoes are exhibited in the refectory near the complex. As we will see, the restoration of the frescoes to their original visual, spatial, and architectural context allows us to understand their primary function, draw relevant conclusions about the date of their creation, and gather important evidence to reconstruct the lost altarpiece of the church.

Olivier Poisson

In 1879, shortly after the death of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the Musée de Sculpture Comparée was created in the Palais du Trocadéro, built for the 1878 Universal Exposition, as he had wished. This institution, which integrated an important collection of molds gathered over more than half a century, was renamed Musée des Monuments Français in 1934. In connection with the 1937 Universal Exposition, the Palais du Trocadéro underwent a profound transformation to become the present Palais de Chaillot, and its director, Paul Deschamps, wanted to add to the sculptural molds the exhibition of copies of medieval mural paintings. The great novelty of this project was to reproduce not only the paintings but also the architectural spaces that housed them, sometimes on a large scale (such as the vault of Saint-Savin, or the dome of Cahors). The realization of this project took many years before its opening to the public in 1945.

Francesca Pomarici

This contribution examines the conservation process of the paintings found in Santa Inés Extramuros during the works following the dramatic collapse of the floor of a rectory room on February 12, 1855, in which Pope Pius IX was involved during a visit to the basilica. An attempt will be made to reconstruct the context and reasons that led to the removal of the cycles depicting the stories of Saint Catherine and Saint Benedict, which are now preserved in the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Carme Ramells

The hundred-year history of the detached mural paintings at the Museu Nacional reflects a sustained effort to present the ensembles in a manner consistent with their original locations. The recovery of the paintings did not end with the initial removals and subsequent installation in wooden apses in 1923. Some mural fragments that were not part of the apse basins were exhibited framed, and others, discovered later, were removed in various campaigns in the 1960s-70s. Their incorporation into the galleries has been gradual, as their specific locations have been studied and restored. The work of recent years, culminating in 2023, involves incorporating fragments into the ensembles of Sant Climent de Taüll, Sant Pere del Burgal, and Sant Joan de Boí. In this presentation, we will present the particularities of each case and how study, restoration intervention, and documentation search have determined the current presentation proposal. The incorporation of fragments enriches the vision of these ensembles and facilitates new interpretations of technical, chromatic, iconographic, or symbolic nature.

Eduard Riu

Next December will mark nine hundred years since the consecration of the Pyrenean church of Sant Climent de Taüll in the Valle de Boí, and historiographical consensus suggests that it was around 1123 that the main apse received the superb painting that has become an icon of Romanesque art in the 20th century due to its majestic representation, conveying a categorical plastic elevation. Throughout the long time that separates its creation from the present day, this image has always been present, never hidden, and therefore did not need to be properly discovered. It was culturally revealed, but not visually, as it remained manifest to impart the grace or wrath that its imperturbable figure may suggest, in one of the few Romanesque paintings of uninterrupted worship. It took the years 1904-1907 for it to be appreciated by secular eyes, which highlighted its art and historicity, in a cultural context where archaic plastic manifestations became contemporary artistic references. While part of the painting had arrived almost intact, the building itself is one of the few preserved without significant transformations, giving it high architectural value. However, the pictorial space of the temple in terms of painting had progressively been modified, reduced, hidden, or destroyed until it was almost circumscribed to the image of the majesty. The international trade of antiquities interested in European medieval works sought to acquire this piece around 1919 and relocate it to North America. In order to safeguard it and prevent its exportation, the Catalan authorities obtained the painting, which was removed and installed in 1923 in the new art museum of Barcelona, the current Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. With this operation, the disappearance of the Romanesque painted space was completed, and the constructive nakedness was temporarily imposed. The situation was already attempted to be reversed around 1960 with the installation of a physical copy of the removed painting, but mounted on a plaster support, it concealed remnants of the still-existing painting in the apse. The hope of recovering it, the need to renew the old copy, integrate new fragments discovered in 2000-2001, and the interest in presenting a recreation of the complete painting within the original architecture led to the formulation of an innovative mapping project that, without affecting the structure, reproduced the painting preserved in the Museu Nacional, integrated the on-site vestiges, and at the same time virtually reconstructed the original state. The combined action of research, mapping creation, and space conditioning was carried out by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya with the support of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and was inaugurated in 2013.

Marco Rossi

After a brief introduction on the history and consistency of medieval painting removals in Lombardy, two very significant cases from important basilicas in the city of Milan are considered: San Giovanni in Conca, demolished (except for the crypt) in 1948-1949, whose frescoes are preserved in the Museum of Ancient Art of the Castello Sforzesco; and Sant'Ambroggio, which, on the other hand, hosts in situ —but in different areas— the Romanesque paintings removed in the 1960s. In both cases, the study of archival documentation may allow for the reconstruction of the original painted space and iconographic programs.

Carles Sánchez

Since the late 19th century, the mural paintings of the ancient See of Égara have attracted attention for their singularity. In 1895, Josep Puig i Cadafalch published a pioneering study on the monument, marking the beginning of a long period of archaeological research, restoration, and recovery of the memory of the ancient paintings of Sant Pere. The discovery of the mural paintings and the archaeological interventions carried out in the ensemble propelled interest in the monument from the local to the international level. Recent technical studies conducted within the framework of the Master Plan allow us to explore a new possible chronological background for the paintings of Santa María and San Miguel (6th century). The frescoes can be considered as an example of the reception of a 6th-century pictorial tradition linked to the Eastern Mediterranean, which was employed in a very particular way. However, we are unaware of the means of this artistic transmission, as well as the reasons that led the patrons of Terrassa to select such a peculiar repertoire of themes.

Gemma Ylla-Català

The hundred-year history of the mural paintings removed from the Museu Nacional reflects a continuous effort to present the ensembles in a manner consistent with their original locations. The recovery of the paintings did not end with the initial removals and subsequent installation in wooden apses in 1923. Some mural fragments that were not from the apses were displayed in frames, and others, discovered later, were removed in various campaigns in the 1960s-70s. Their incorporation into the galleries has been gradual, as their specific locations have been studied and restored. The work of recent years, culminating in 2023, involves incorporating fragments into the ensembles of Sant Climent de Taüll, Sant Pere del Burgal, and Sant Joan de Boí. In this presentation, we will present the particularities of each case and how the study, restoration intervention, and documentation search have determined the current presentation proposal. The addition of fragments enriches the vision of these ensembles and facilitates new interpretations with technical, chromatic, iconographic, or symbolic aspects.