Restoration Works in Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi at Rome
The conservative restoration of the Roman church of Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi was financed with funds appropriated for the Jubilee 2000. Its target was to arrest the decay of stone surfaces on the façade, as well as to improve structural functions of the facing, in order to stop some processes of detachment from masonry underneath. The façade – characterized by matching of brick and travertine – was simply cleaned and whitewashed without altering its historical facies. On the other hand, the original finish imitating travertine had been removed at the beginning of 20th century, as archival documents witness and direct examinations and preliminary stratigraphic analysis confirm. A special kind of mortar – tested by the Istituto Centrale del Restauro – was injected in order to strengthen the adherence of the facing to the masonry.
