Story of St Stephen and St John the Baptist

One of the more interesting aspects of this cycle is the artistic techniques employed: Lippi’s technical interests, together with his personal biography – he eloped with a young nun who bore his son, the future artist Filippino Lippi – led to the work extending over many years, and perhaps to the artist’s extensive use of the secco technique, used more widely here than in any other of his works.

Difficulties in understanding the extent of this secco finishing work led to some heavy-handed and damaging restorations which sought to uncover the parts of the painting clearly painted in fresco. A large part of our study of the paintings was aimed at the detection of the traces left of this original work from underneath later repaintings and subtly bringing them out during the process of cleaning and final retouching.

This large conservation worksite became an inspiring site of exchanges between CBCs conservators, trained at the Roman (ISCR) Istituto Superiore di Conservazione e Restauro, and various experts working with the methods of the Florentine OPD (Opeficio delle Pietre Dure). Initial caution turned into an enthusiastic sharing of experiences and methodologies, finishing with new friendships and mutual esteem. We learned a whole new range of treatment and investigative techniques and were pleased to see our proposals for minimally

reconstructive retouching welcomed as a way of bringing out the elegance of the damaged original paintings. Cleaning in general, and the reduction of the synthetic resins applied by Leonetto Tintori in the 1970s to the vaults – applied to consolidate the salt damaged paint and optically bring out the figures of the Evangelists – was particularly difficult and saw a collaboration with Luigi Dei of Florence university and his colleagues on the early use of solvents in microemulsions and dispersions of micro lime particles in alcohol.