Włoska technika a bianco di calce na przykładzie bielańskich fresków Michelangelo Palloniego

The conservation of frescoes by Michelangelo Palloni — Sacrifice of Solomon, St. Benedict and St. Romuald (last quarter of the seventeenth century), decorating the vault of the sacristy of the post-Camaldolite church in Bielany (Warsaw), conducted at the end of 1996 by Joanna Polaska and Tytus Sawicki, provided an opportunity for becoming familiar with a number of details concerning the Italian a bianco di calce technique, described in Polish terminology as the Baroque or lime fresco. The intention of the article is to present upon the example of the Bielany paintings the origin and characteristic of the Baroque fresco, and to demonstrate connections between the artistic workshop of Palloni and the techniques of the greatest Italian fresco artists of the seventeenth century. The comparative material includes, apart from the Bielany polychromies, other works by the Florentine painter working in Poland as well as the works of Pietro da Cortona and his pupils, the so-called Cortonists, who include two of Palloni’s teachers — Baltassare Franceschini, known as Volterrano, and Cirro Ferri. The author discusses examples of paintings from the Mannerist period, the transitional stage between the Renaissance buon fresco and the impasto Baroque fresco. The Bielany paintings disclose particular stages of the work executed by a Baroque author of frescoes, in other words, the technology and technique of producing the plaster, methods of transposing the drawing, and the painting technique. The lime-sand plasters were placed in two layers — arriccio and intonaco. The paintings in question include three methods of transposing the drawing: embossment in fresh plaster, etching directly in the plaster, and freehand. The characteristic features of the Palloni technique include a rapid and skillful mode of painting (the so-called pittura di getto) and the introduction of frequent changes and corrections (numerous pentimenti ). The artist first of all freely executed on the fresh intonaco subpainting with red paint, on which, after a certain interval of time, he placed thick, concealing paint obtained from a mixture of pigments and lime. Technical errors in the use of lime paint were the reason for powdering certain parts of the Sacrifice of Solomon. Upon many occasions, the painter worked on the chiaroscuro with the aid o f strokes. The following pigments were identified in the Bielany frescoes: carbonate of lime, charcoal, brown and red iron oxides, ochre and smalt.