Records and Archives News

ICCROM has recently received a donation of valuable records produced by Paolo and Laura Mora, two internationally renowned Italian conservators. This photograph, taken by Paolo Mora in 1962, depicts the Temple of Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel before its transfer to a new location with the start of the Aswan High Dam project.

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...

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.