The Monochrome of the Sala delle Asse is a portion of wall decoration left at the drawing stage and represents the roots of one of the sixteen mulberry trees that, regularly spaced on the walls of the room, intertwine above to create a polychrome arboreal pavilion on the vault. The decoration of the room, which was never completed, is historically tied to the name of Leonardo da Vinci by a letter written in April 1498 by Gualtiero da Bascapé, the secretary of Ludovico il Moro, to the duke of Milan, explaining that Lunedì si desarmarà la camera grande da le Asse c[i]oè da la tore. Magistro Leonardo promete finirla per tuto Septembre. The room was subjected to radically changing fortunes over the centuries, and was later the object of two complex restoration campaigns, the first carried out between 1893 and 1902 by Luca Beltrami and the second between 1955 and 1956 by Costantino Baroni. This volume provides an account of the result of restoration, the complex diagnostic research and the technical assessments carried out towards beginning a broader project for the conservation of the painted area.
Introduction
Michela Palazzo and Claudio Salsi
I. A HISTORICAL SURVEY
La camera grande da le Asse coè da la tore, from Galeazzo Maria Sforza to Luca Beltrami
Francesca Tasso
Leonardo and the Non-Finito of the Sala delle Asse
Cecilia Frosinini
Notes on the Making of the Monochrome
Michela Palazzo
Leonardo da Vinci’s Monochrome in the Sala delle Asse. Conservation, History and Interpretation
Michela Palazzo
II. DIAGNOSTIC TESTING FOR RESTORATION OF THE MONOCHROME
Georadar Investigations and Monitoring of the Wall Structures and Vault System of the Sala delle Asse
Diego Arosio, Paola Condoleo, Marco Cucchi, Stefano Munda, Claudia Tiraboschi, Luigi Zanzi
The Diagnostic Survey: The Sala delle Asse and its Context
Susanna Bortolotto, Elisabetta Ciocchini, Andrea Garzulino, Raffaella Simonelli, Fabio Zangheri
The Preliminary Thermo-Hygrometric Research and Environmental Monitoring of the Sala delle Asse
Elisabetta Rosina
High Resolution for the Sala delle Asse
Annarita Merigo, Vincenzo Mirarchi
Integration of the Laser Scanner Data and the Multispectral Panoramic Photographic Survey: From the Survey to the Production of False Colour Orthographs in View of Developments in Photogrammetry
Elena Biondi, Alessandro Bovero, Paolo Triolo
An Additional View: the Contribution of CNR Diagnostics to the Monochrome in the Sala delle Asse Conservation
Antonio Sansonetti, Alessandra Botteon, Moira Bertasa, Claudia Conti, Chiara Colombo, Riccardo Negrotti, Marco Realini, Alessia Andreotti, Laura Rampazzi
Analysing Wall Painting with ‘Dual Mode’ Thermal Imaging: The Study of Leonardo’s Monochrome Using Thermal Quasi-Reflectography and Thermography in the Mid-IR
Claudia Daffara, Simone Parisotto, Paola Ilaria Mariotti
The Hypercolorimetric Multispectral Imaging (HMI) and Fluorescence Analyses on Leonardo da Vinci’s Polychrome and Monochrome Paintings in the Sala delle Asse
Marcello Melis
III. THE STATE OF PRESERVATION AND THE RESTORATION
The State of Preservation and the Restoration of the Monochrome
Fabrizio Bandini, Alberto Felici, Maria Rosa Lanfranchi, Paola Ilaria Mariotti
From Scientific Documentation to Valorisation
Massimo Chimenti
The Multimedia Communication of a Restoration
Diletta Apollonio, Nicoletta Di Blas, Paolo Paolini
Conclusions. Thoughts on the Restoration of Lacunae
Marco Ciatti
The Monochrome
Bibliographic Essay
Carlo Catturini, Luca Tosi
La Sala delle Asse del Castello Sforzesco
All'ombra del Moro
