«Una pagina intera di storia dell’arte ricucita» Il restauro di Alfonso Rubbiani del ciclo pittorico di Giorgio Vasari nel refettorio di San Michele in Bosco a Bologna

Abstract

This paper investigates for the first time the restoration work carried out on the refectory of the monastery of San Michele in Bosco in Bologna, which was supervised by Alfonso Rubbiani between 1892 and 1895. In spite of the vast literature on the ‘restorer’, this work has so far been scarcely considered both because of the chronology of the building (mid-16th century) as well as because it did not entail radical changes. Indeed, the limited size of the room and the numerous documentary traces – carefully tracked by Rubbiani and his patron, the lawyer Giuseppe Bacchelli – were addressing the operation philologically. The discovery of unpublished archival evidence contributed to a more appropriate understanding of the overall work; in particular, it is possible to note how the initial intentions of the architect and the commissioner, which were based on erudite investigations that involved intellectuals and politicians of the time, did not, unfortunately, come to fruition.