It will take a few months to have the final results of the six-month check-up of verification and monitoring of the Riace Bronzes that involved, with the restorers of the National Museum of Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria, the Central Institute of Restoration and the University of Genoa. “The Bronzes are not in bad shape – declared the director of the Icr Louis Olive -. The data we have collected is very large, but we expect to make a synthesis and a report within a few months that can be used, then, at best, both by the institute and by the museum. We can say that what you see is quite true on the outside. There are some critical points inside. But this is precisely the purpose of this work, that of not having to do restorations or having to do interventions that are aimed at conservation. That is, to guarantee the best conditions of conservation to avoid more demanding interventions in the future”. 10 years have passed since the last important restoration carried out on the Riace Bronzes and the Porticello statues, from 2009 to 2013.
«It is an activity that has allowed us to monitor the state of health of the Bronzes – stated the director of the MarRc Fabrizio Sudano who thanked the technicians and experts who worked on the check-up -. We care a lot about these statues, for their identity value, for their uniqueness. We await the results of this check to understand if we are going on the right path with respect to the solutions used in recent years, not only in the conservation and restoration activity, but also on the microclimatic conditions, which characterize the ‘Bronze room’. We are therefore ready to correct any errors, not only on the microclimate, but also on the flow of tourists accessing the hall.. These are data that will be precious for the future – Sudano explained -. A future that offers us many hypotheses, one of which, for example, concerns the adaptation of the anti-seismic bases, whose installation dates back to 2013 and to intervene on the ‘bronze room’ to make it even more beautiful, more culturally and cognitively usable, and above all more accessible”.
Among the experts involved, Prof. Paul Piccardo Professor of Metallurgy at the Department of Industrial Chemistry at the University of Genoa, who led the team of chemists and metallurgists who participated in the verification in recent months. In confirming that the alloys used to create the two works are confirmed to be of excellent quality, Piccardo defined continuous maintenance on the finds as necessary. “This is because – he explained – adequate maintenance excludes the need for drastic interventions over time. They are valuable masterpieces. They are works that are unique in their own way and that truly represent something that must be preserved not only from a material and aesthetic point of view but also from a technical knowledge point of view: what is the immaterial knowledge, the technology that produced them, the style, the choices made in ancient times and then also during the contemporary conservation process. They are something that is close to our hearts and that we try to preserve for the future”.