International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property
One of the ICCROM Archives’ largest sample collections is the Mora Samples Archive, donated by famous conservators Laura and Paolo Mora for teaching and research purposes. Many of the samples are from world-renowned heritage places, such as the Tomb of Nefertari, where sampling is no longer allowed. The collection currently includes 1 200 samples collected from the 1960s to the 1980s from heritage...
Once upon a time, there lived a man called Saint George who served as a soldier in the Roman army. Legend has it that he heroically defeated a fire-breathing dragon to save a princess from her castle. This iconography was beautifully illustrated in the 14th century in a fresco within the Venzone Cathedral of Sant’Andrea Apostolo in Friuli – a northeast Italian region bordering Austria, Slovenia and the Adriatic Sea.
For February’s resource, our destination is Ethiopia, famed for its spectacular natural sites and distinctive cultural heritage extending deep into the past. The country has an abundance of important historic sites, including significant ancient churches.
The 13th-century, Gothic-style Church of Eremitani in the northern Italian city of Padua was decorated with mosaics by the greatest Renaissance artists in the region, most notably Andrea Mantegna. The frescoes, painted between 1448-1457 and depicting scenes from the lives of Saints James and Christopher, were Mantegna's first major commission.
The Portico of Octavia was built by Augustus in the 1st century BC. Today, the portico’s remains have been annexed to the church of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria. The portico’s colonnaded walks can be found next to the Theatre of Marcellus - an ancient Roman open-air theatre. The Portico of Octavia was damaged by an earthquake in the 5th century, when two of the destroyed columns were replaced with an archway, which still stands and is visible in the...
If you understand Italian, you may be perplexed by the name of the Church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria. In pescheria? A fish market? The story of how this church got its name is nearly as strange as you might imagine. It is located near the remains of the Portico of Octavia, which Emperor Augustus dedicated to his sister in ancient times, though it became a fish market (pescheria) during the Middle Ages and remained so until the 19th century. The...
Does your institution hold heritage samples? If so, you should tune in to the international workshop, “Connecting Collections: Unlocking Value in Heritage Samples Archives,” which will take place in-person 13 - 15 June 2022, in Évora, Portugal. The workshop is organized by ICCROM as part of its Heritage Samples Archives Initiative (HSAI), together with the HERCULES Laboratory - University of...
In a room on the first floor of the Palazzo Farnese, a High Renaissance palace now housing the French embassy in Rome, the ceiling is decorated with a fresco cycle by the painter Annibale Carracci (1560–1609). Known as the Camerino Farnese, it features a scene from Greek mythology in which Hercules carries the weight of Atlas’ globe.
A unique setting rich with flora and fauna, the Garden of Ninfa is an English-style landscape park in the Latina province, recognized as an Italian natural monument. The park was the site of a medieval village of the same name.
In the Italian town of Genazzano, there is a 16th-century nymphaeum, or shrine to the nymphs, attributed to Donato Bramante, the architect and painter known for designing the earliest example of High Renaissance style architecture in Rome. Our archives hold a series of photos and drawings from a study project carried out at the nymphaeum in 1977.