|
The
Loggetta began as a club for noblemen in
the 13th century, when it was a small loggia,
or open-fronted room, attached to the side
of the old church of San Basso. Removed
to the base of the Campanile when San Basso
disappeared in the enlargement of the Piazza,
the Loggetta took on a new use as the entrance
to the tower. Jacopo Sansovino redesigned
it in 1537, when it was intended to surround
the base of the tower; but only one side
was completed, to which a roof terrace was
added in 1653 and the lower terrace a decade
later. The Loggetta was reassembled in its
present form in 1912 after the collapse
of the Campanile in 1902 had smashed it
to pieces.
The sculptures and carvings on the Loggetta,
as on virtually all other buildings in Venice,
have suffered badly -not only from centuries
of smoke from Venetian chimneys but more
seriously still from 20th-century pollution
caused by industry and pigeons. These problems,
still unresolved by the 1970s, had rendered
the façade of the Loggetta virtually
unreadable.
With the advice of the Superintendency for
the Artistic and Historical Heritage and
Sir John Pope-Hennessy, then director of
the Victoria and Albert Museum, pioneering
works were carried out in 1972-74 at the
expense of Venice in Peril. The various
materials -Carrara marble for the reliefs
(by Sansovino's pupils), red Verona marble
for additional decoration, bronze for the
statues of Minerva, Apollo, Mercury and
Peace (which are signed works by Sansovino)-
were cleaned and consolidated using the
best techniques then available.In 1996 VIP
funded a survey by the Superintendency for
the Environmental and Architectural Heritage
to monitor the durability of the 20-year-old
restoration and provide a scientific base
for future maintenance work.
DIRECTION OF WORKS: Superintendency for
the Artistic and Historical Heritage and
the Superintendency for the Environmental
and Architectural Heritage
CONSERVATORS: Sculpture: Kenneth Hempel,
Giulia Musumeci Hempel |
)
)