Giotto utilisait du lait

Giotto, La Nativité

Des chercheurs ont découvert des protéines laitières dans les fragments de la fresque de Giotto de la Basilique de Saint François d’Assise.

Lors d’une analyse des fragments de la fresque de la Basilique de Saint François d’Assise, un groupe de biochimistes de l’université de Naples a trouvé des protéines laitières dans le chef-d’œuvre de Giotto, annonce l’agence ANSA.

« Nous avons développé une technique non-invasive pour étudier la composition des substances utilisées pour préparer la base des fresques et pour coller la très fine feuille d’or des auréoles. Ainsi, on a réussi à isoler des protéines laitières », a expliqué Pietro Pucci, le chef de l’équipe de biochimie, dans une conférence tenue le 25 février. Selon Pucci, cette découverte sera très utile aux historiens de l’art et aux restaurateurs. www.artclair.com

Italian art giant Giotto used cow milk to prepare walls to be frescoed, Italian researchers say.

The discovery was made after examining fragments of frescoes by Giotto and his master Cimabue which collapsed when Assisi's Basilica of St Francis was hit by a 1997 earthquake.

A Naples University biochemical team led by Pietro Pucci analysed the fragments and found proteins from cow's milk.

''We developed non-invasive techniques to study the composition of the substances used to prepare the base of the frescoes and stick on the super-thin gold leaf used for the haloes,'' Pucci told a conference here Wednesday.

''In this way we were able to isolate the milk proteins,'' said Pucci, whose study with Perugia University colleagues Antonio Sgamellotti and Laura Contechini will be published shortly.

The information will be useful for art historians and restorers, Pucci said.

Giotti's great fresco of St Jerome, broken into 40,000 pieces by the quake, was restored to the dome of the basilica in 2002 and Cimabue's famed fresco of St Matthew, smashed into 120,000 bits, went back up four years later.

The unveiling of the reassembled Cimabue in April 2006 completed the restoration of the church, which covers the ruins of an 11th-century oratory where St. Francis founded his order, and the little cell where he died.

The September 1997 Assisi earthquake killed four people in the basilica, caused serious damage to its structure and reduced its famous frescoes and statues to a pile of powdery debris.

Florentine artist Cimabue (1240-1302 circa) is generally considered the last great painter of the Byzantine tradition.

His pioneering work, depicting figures in better proportions and more realistically shaded in, was a major influence on Giotto (1267-1337), who in turn is credited with laying the foundations for the Renaissance. photo: Giotto's St Jerome fresco unveiled in September 2002  www.ansa.it