Beyond the Conservation Project. 20th Century Restoration of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Tuscania (VT)

Abstract

The basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Tuscania is a medieval
building subjected to different interventions over the centuries
and long periods of neglect. The current image of the church
is the result of the restorations carried out between the 1950s
and the 1970s, which had the intention of restoring an image
of the church that is the translation on site of an ideal model
not always backed up by reliable data. All this was achieved by
taking advantage first of post-war reconstruction funds, and
then of funding for reconstruction after the 1971 earthquake in
Tuscania. The ideal models were the drawings by Luigi Leporini,
an architect from Ascoli who worked for the Soprintendenza dei
Monumenti del Lazio from 1939 onwards.
The paper describes the interventions carried out since an
analysis of iconographic and documentary sources, both
published and unpublished, and a subsequent direct comparison
with the building. The analysis of the restoration sites allows us
to investigate the construction methods used to consolidate the
masonry buildings in the second half of the 20th century and,
at the same time, sheds light on the persistence of the desire to
reacquire a hypothetical original image.
The study adds new elements to the construction history of the
church. Finally provides some general considerations on an
approach to the restoration of monuments which tries to find
a difficult balance between structural reasons and instances
of reconfiguration, which, even in the 1970s, were based on
analogical comparison.