Compared to traveling and class field trips, sometimes class in the palace can seem less interesting, but today one class really caught my attention. Maybe because I got a decent amount of sleep last night or the fact that I drank a couple of espressos before class; either way, our lectures today were by far some of my favorite. The lecture that really caught my attention was the one on art restoration with our lecturer Livio Lacuitti. Livio has dedicated his whole life to restoring paintings, frescos, and even the ceilings in some of the churches that we will visit during our time in Italy. Today, Livio showed us a painting that was brought into him to inspect. The painting was of the Roman Forum with a river running through it. If you have ever been to the Roman Forum, you would know that there is no river running through it. Livio found this piece to be very suspicious so he decided to investigate the piece further. He asked the owner if he could see if there was anything painted under the current work. So after some further investigation, and the use of an X-ray machine, he found a hand, and Livio and the owner decided to scrape the current painting and see what was to be found underneath. After many hours, of work they discovered a painting of an unknown magistrate. The owner was very pleased with the end product and his completely restored painting, and it turned out that the piece of art was now worth more than the previous, due to the new painting being of better quality. I found it very fascinating that he could take one piece of art and have the skill and knowledge to know that there was another piece under it, just because of a suspicious feature he noticed on the previous painting. In addition, I found the restoration process to be extremely precise and intriguing. After learning about Livio’s step by step process, I am convinced that it takes a very special and skillful person to do this work. Livio has one of the most fascinating and challenging jobs in my opinion, and his lecture today illustrated further to me the importance of his job to this region.
-Brandon Rohrer