Graffiti coverings in Rome in the sixteenth century: the example of the house in vicolo del Governo Vecchio, 52

• Main Authors: Francesca Romana Stabile, Giovanna Spadafora
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of L'Aquila 2015-01-01
• Series: Disegnare con
• Subjects: graffitied facades; photogrammetric survey; cataloging.
• Online Access: http://disegnarecon.univaq.it/ojs/index.php/disegnarecon/article/view/17

Even at the end of the nineteenth century, Rome prided a large number of decorated facades in<br />graffiti or monochrome chiaroscuro, which te-<br />stified the compositional richness and variety of<br />these decorations, executed since the fifteenth<br />century. The current research, which presents<br />the first results, is aimed at deepening the study<br />of formal features and materials of the Roman<br />graphite facades, with the objective - among<br />others - to define ways of recognition and con-<br />servation practices of graffiti coverings. The re-<br />search started by cataloging the graphite and<br />painted facades in Rome in the fifteenth and si-<br />xteenth centuries, and revealed the progressive loss of material characters and figurative values<br />of such historical and artistic heritage. A systema-<br />tic historical research has yielded, by continuous<br />comparisons, the definition of a series of buil-<br />dings types. One of these - the graffitied house in<br />vicolo del Governo Vecchio, 52 - has been studied<br />in detail, also using the data obtained from pho-<br />togrammetric and topographic survey.