Luca Fabiani

Imagery

Specialist in the photographic documentation and graphic survey of environmental and cultural heritage, Luca Fabiani co-founded Azimut in 1995, a company dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage. Internationally active, he worked on graphic and photographic surveys for redressing the marble of the Hagia Sofia (Istanbul), the Saint Martial Chapel of the Palais des Papes (Avignon), and the Hôtel Salé, site of the Picasso Museum (Paris), and the Aguas Livres Aqueduct (Lisbon).

Raffaella fontana

Physicist

Raffaella Fontana graduated in Physics and received her PhD in Non-Destructive Techniques at the University of Florence. Since 2004, she is a researcher at the National Institute of Optics of the National Research Council (CNR-INO) where she coordinates the Heritage Science Groupe since 2010. She published more than 50 papers and many book chapters and research monographs. Her research focuses on non-invasive optical techniques for the diagnosis of artworks, mainly imaging techniques and methods for the three-dimensional survey.

Bruno Brunetti

Inorganic Chemistry

Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Perugia and President of the SMAArt (Scientific Methodologies Applied to Archaeology and Art) Center of Excellence until 2015, Bruno Brunetti is member of the Interuniversity Consortium for Materials Science and Technology (INSTM) and also affiliated with the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Technologies (SCITEC) of CNR.

In 2001 he co-founded with Antonio Sgamellotti the mobile laboratory MOLAB, specializing in non-invasive in-situ investigations of artworks. From 2001 to 2015 he was the coordinator of three consecutive European projects in the field of research infrastructures in heritage sciences:

• Coordinator of the European network LabS-TECH, “Science and Technology Laboratory for the Conservation of European Cultural Heritage”
• Coordinator of the European integrated infrastructure initiative EU-ARTECH, “Access, Research and Technology for the Conservation of European Cultural Heritage”
• Coordinator of the European integrated project CHARISMA, “Advanced Research Infrastructures on Cultural Heritage: Synergy for a multidisciplinary approach to conservation”

He is the author of more than 180 publications in the international scientific literature.

Pierluigi Bucci

Engineer

Graduate of the Polytechnic School of Turin with a degree in Construction Engineering, Pierluigi Bucci specializes in the conception and analysis of complex structures. For more than 15 years he worked between Italy and France as a consultant for several internationally renowned studios, participating in projects in China, the United States, Korea, Singapore, and Ireland. His background has given him experience with a variety of materials and structures, which he applies to his diagnostic work and rehabilitation of historical buildings in stone, wood, steel, and reinforced concrete.

Since 2014, he founded and led Bucci and Partners s.a.r.l, a firm that analyzes and designs complex structures. Among the projects he has led are the structural project for the exhibition pavilion of the 2020 Venice Biennale, the project of the reassembly of the decorations of the Chancellerie d’Orléans in Paris or the project of the canopy structures of the Brickel City Center in Miami.

Pierluigi Bucci has also participated in the analysis of structures such as the tympanum of the Basilica of Vezelay and the Tomb of the Kings in Jerusalem and has been in charge of the analysis of the stability of the roofing of the Salle des Lampes of the National Assembly in Paris.

Véronique Sorano-Stedman

Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art

Former student of the École du Louvre, Véronique Sorano-Stedman is a graduate of IFROA-INP (National Heritage Institute) and holds a master’s degree in science and techniques of conservation-restoration of cultural property from the Paris I University. She worked for large institutions both in France and internationally before accepting the prestigious position as head of the department of conservation-restoration of modern and contemporary artworks at the National Center for Art and Culture Georges Pompidou (Paris). She directed major projects such as the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre, the Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles, and the Aurora Pavilion in Sceaux.

Specialized in the restoration of contemporary art, Véronique Sorano-Stedman is a member of the Louvre Restoration Commission, of the C2RMF scientific council as well as of the board of directors of the National Heritage Institute (INP).

Giancarla Cilmi

Art Historian

Giancarla Cilmi is an art historian (EPHE/École du Louvre) specialised in European painting from the 16th to the 18th century. Her doctoral thesis focused on the Italian collection of the Jacquemart-André Museum, the collector phenomenon and the art market between France and Italy at the end of the 19th century.

Lecturer and researcher, she took part, among other things, in the writing of several exhibition catalogues on Italian and, more generally, European painting. She also published several articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Giancarla has been collaborating with French and Europeans museums for some years, providing them with her unvaluable expertise.

Ciro Castelli

Wood Conservation

After training in the early 1960s, Ciro Castelli began his collaboration with the Superintendence of Florence for the first interventions on the artworks of the Uffizi following the flood of 1966.

Chief technical restorer at the laboratory of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Ciro Castelli’s journey includes an extraordinary series of restorations of major artists, such as Beccafumi, Botticelli, Cimabue, Giotto, Lippi, Masaccio, Raphael, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, Mantegna and Vasari. His consultations have authoritative weight with museums, institutions, and galleries both in Italy and abroad. Since 2010, he has been training conservators as part of an initiative funded by the Getty Foundation for the Training and Treatment project.

He publishes scientific texts, advanced works and research as well as numerous texts for catalogs.

Roberto Bellucci

Optical Science

Roberto Belluci graduated as a Master of Art in 1968 and has been a restorer since 1972 at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and the Laboratori di Restauro di Firenze. He is the author of more than 100 scientific publications on restoration techniques. He specializes in optical technical-scientific diagnoses of artistic techniques. He is an associate of the CNR-INO (National Institute of Optics) and is involved in the integration of historical-artistic and technical studies using date derived from scientific investigations. In this context, he has participated in numerous international study conferences, presenting lectures on the applications of diagnostics to cultural property.

For the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, he has conducted numerous research projects on the artistic techniques of renowned painters such as Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci… He has restored numerous artworks, including Botticelli’s Coronation of the Virgin, Leonardo da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi and Raphael’s Madonna of the Grand Duke.

He was a member of the scientific council of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and remains the technical and scientific referent of the IPERION-CH project.

Cinzia Pasquali

Conservation of Ancient and Contemporary Art

Graduated from the Central Restoration Institute of Rome (ISCR), with a double specialization in painting and sculpture, as well as a master’s degree in Science and Technology (Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, Paris I University), Cinzia Pasquali has directed several large-scale restoration projects in Italy, such as the churches of Donna Regina Nuovo in Naples and Santa Barbara dei Librari in Rome, as well as the restoration of numerous paintings, among which are the copper paintings by Dominiquin and Ribera in the Treasure of St. Januarius Chapel in Naples.

Based in France since 1990, she directed the restoration of complex monumental projects, including the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre, the Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles, the Grande Singerie at the Château de Chantilly and, more recently, the decorations of the Chancellerie d’Orléans.

She works for the Center of Research and of Restoration of the Museum of France (C2RmF), where she restored emblematic works such as Saint Anne, the Virgin, and Child Jesus playing with a Lamb by Leonardo da Vinci (Louvre Museum, Paris), the Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci by Piero de Cosimo (Condé Museum, Chantilly), as well as Saint George Slaying the Dragon, a masterpiece by Paolo Uccello (Jacquemart-André museum, Paris).

In her workshop, she develops a specificity around the diagnosis of paintings and is regularly solicited by national and international museums for the realization of preliminary studies.

Antonio Sgamellotti

Scientist in theory and spectroscopy

Professor Emeritus of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Perugia and member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Dr. Sgamellotti is also an honorary member of the Accademia delle Arti Disegno in Florence. He is a doctor honoris causa of the National Univeristy of San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, and a partner of European projects in cultural heritage since 1999. He is co-founder, with Bruno Brunetti, of the mobile laboratory MOLAB and honorary President of the SMAArt (Scientific Methodologies applied to Archaeology and Art) Center of Excellence of Perugia University. Due to its scientific value and its uniqueness, the MOLAB has been recognized by the European Union as a European infrastructure providing transnational access to research in the physical sciences and humanities.

He is author of more than 400 publications on scientific international journals and co-editor of the volumes published by the Royal Society of Chemistry: “Science and Art. The Painted Surface” (2014) and “Science and Art. The Contemporary Painted Surface” (2020).

Antonio Sgamellotti’s research focused on two main themes: theoretical investigations in inorganic chemistry and chemical-physical investigations in the field of cultural heritage.

Antonio Forcellino

History of Renaissance Art

Restorer, art historian and writer, Antonio Forcellino has been working as a cultural heritage restorer since 1987. He is known for the restoration of some of the greatest masterpieces of Italian Renaissance art: the tomb of Julius II by Michelangelo at San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, the façade of the Libreria Piccolomini by Pinturicchio, and the Altare Piccolomini by Michelangelo in the Duomo of Siena.

He has written numerous publications, essays and research papers that have been widely distributed in Europe and the United States. His multiple experiences and his involvement in scientific research and university teaching allowed him to develop a solid expertise on the protection’s problems and management of cultural heritage, especially Italian.