Opera magazine
2016-08-02
Art on the move: Andrea Pisano's Door
The Andrea Pisano's Door of the Baptistery is the oldest one and it has just left - after 680 years! - its original collocation.
The Andrea Pisano's Door of the Baptistery is the oldest one and it has just left - after 680 years! - its original collocation.
The Door was removed in the night between April 15th and 16th (2016) to reach the safe destination of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the worldwide leading restoration lab.
The Door was severely hit by the 1966 alluvione - the flood of the Arno river which caused extensive damage to Florence and its heritage. The fury of water had caused a rift on the Door, which had lost its gilding as well.
The Andrea Pisano's Door: older than Renaissance
The Door was built between 1330 and 1336.
It is a huge artwork: 4mt (16ft) height, 2.95mt width (more than 9ft), 800kg (1763 lb).
The disassembly of the Door for the transport setup required several days; the restoration at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure will bring back the golden surface, now hidden under layers of dirt.
The art of cloning art
The Andrea Pisano's Door is the third and last to go under restoration after Ghiberti’s Porta del Paradiso (in 1990) and the Porta Nord (January 2016 with the support of Guild of The Dome).
The “real” door will not go back to the Baptistery: as for the previous two doors a replica will take the place of the original one in the Baptistery while the original one will be exhibited in the new Opera Duomo Museum.
The restoration works require three years instead of two years as for the Porta Nord, as the Andrea Pisano's Door is in worse conditions.
Residues and deposits hide the original gilding, the touch of visitors’ hands consumed the bas-reliefs of the panels; moreover, the alluvione caused the rift and the fall of some of the panels.
Currently a temporary replica has been placed at the Baptistery: the definitive one will be built after the scan of the original door.
The operations of disassembly, restoration and then reassembly were funded entirely by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.
