Santa Maria Assunta of Ariccia, Santa Maria in Gradi of Viterbo: Comparison between methodological and operational exemplifications
by Rosanna Cancellieri

The right limit that mustn’t be overpassed by any intervention of restoration and reintegration of monuments - either damaged or defaced as a consequence of a state of abandon or catastrophes - is one of the most delicate issues under discussion within the structures operating in this field. The problem gets even harder when it comes to the recovery of Baroque architecture’s historical values. Sometimes, the choice is one of a rigorous and absolute conservation, where any transformation undergone by the manufact must be conserved. In other occasions, an almost retrospective approach privileges some criteria to reconstruct a “rebuilt” primary image with a literate or analogical translation of the lost reality. But there are also integrative projects whose technological choices betray the contemporary character of reconstruction; these projects may be sharable provided that their priority is to avoid any clash, whether formal or material, with the primary building and rather to try and adapt to it.
This contribution means to illustrate the cognitive processes of two monuments with a high historic and artistic value: the monumental complex of S. Maria Assunta, a Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s most famous work, and of S.Maria in Gradi of Viterbo that we owe to Nicola Salvi. Both have led to the understanding and, as a consequence, to the definition of two different proposals for intervention.
So there are two different and particular methodological lines but still many unsolved problems. The only true and certain reference is the realness of any work of art that affirms the absolute priority and need for its original parts to be conserved, consolidated, protected, reintegrated, enhanced but never replaced.