It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of our colleague Rosalia Varoli-Piazza.
When Rosalia joined the ICCROM team in 2002, thanks to an agreement with the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, she already had a long career as an art historian, researcher and teacher, notably at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro (ICR) based in Rome. During this period, in addition to her duties as Director of the Textile Laboratory and her many commitments to training future conservators, she directed major conservation projects, such as Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina (Rome) and the minimal opening of the imperial sarcophagus of Frederic II (Palermo). At the international level, from the 1980s onwards, she was active in professional organizations, such as the IIC, ICOM and ICOM’s Conservation Committee (ICOM-CC). In the latter, she was the coordinator of the Textiles Group (two terms), and then a member of the Directory Board. She was also called upon several times by the French Ministry of Culture to contribute her expertise to conservation projects for major works, such as the Salon d’Hercule and the Galerie des glaces at Versailles, and the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre.
Appointed ICCROM’s Senior Programme Coordinator, Rosalia generously gave her extensive knowledge, skills and network to the service of the organization. In particular, she took part in the design of the innovative series of international courses on “sharing conservation decisions,” and coordinated the first three editions, bringing in new themes, such as tacit knowledge, and encouraging discussions on the importance of visual observation and documentary research in decision-making. At the same time, she was a member of the Conservation Research Group within ICCROM, putting interdisciplinary conservation into practice, contributing to a reflection on the evolution of the concept of conservation worldwide, and liaising with universities and institutions in Italy and around the world. She also oversaw the ICCROM history project for the 50th anniversary of the organization.
For her colleagues at ICCROM, our partners and the many participants who have had the chance to get to know her, working with Rosalia has been a real source of learning and reflection, as well as a link to the thinking of her two mentors, Giulio Carlo Argan and Cesare Brandi. Her perspective as an art historian and her experience, great intellectual curiosity and creativity, but also her attentiveness, kindness and joie de vivre have had a great impact on the quality of our projects, working atmosphere and team spirit.
She has left us a corpus of over 60 articles and books illustrating her many interests and her desire to promote a multidisciplinary approach and share her work with the public.
In the words of one of her colleagues and friends: “She lived her life as an art historian with a light and attentive step, and it is now on tiptoe, with her innate elegance and discretion, that she has left us. From now on we will be more alone.”
Our condolences go out to her family, friends and colleagues around the world.