SANTA MARIA AL PARADISO
In Corso Vigentina in Milan, in the historic center, there is the Church of Santa Maria al Paradiso. Famous is the legend of the stone located inside the Catholic place of worship. The stone on which the first Christian cross of this city was erected and whose date is important in the Milanese tradition, the famous "tredesin de marz": it was in fact on March 13, 52 AD, that St. Barnabas planted his cross. The stone in which, as per tradition, on March 13 of each year the Cross is exhibited, an image of what tradition said was planted for the first time in Milan by S. Barnba.
THE FIRST STONE
The first stone was laid on June 27, 1590 by the Archbishop of Milan Gaspare Visconti. The façade was built in 1897, while in 1962 the church was elevated to a parish. The interior of the church has a single nave covered by a barrel vault with four chapels on each side. In the nave, traces of the original seventeenth-century decorations are preserved: the painted band with cherubs and festoons and, in the underside of the third chapel on the left, the stucco and tempera medallions with the Joyful Mysteries and other scenes from the life of Mary.
PROCESSING STAGES
2012-2013: Roofing, facade and external elevations works
2013: Completion of internal survey and request for funding for interior restoration
2014: Stratigraphic campaign and design
2015: Request for contribution from the Cariplo Foundation and request for funding for the lighting system
2016: Beginning of work RESTORATION OF INTERNAL SURFACES
2017: End of works RESTORATION OF INTERIOR SURFACES
PROCESSING
The restoration work concerned the internal surfaces of the Church, ranging from the decorated plaster to the stucco elements. The main purpose was to rediscover the original surfaces hidden under multiple layers of repainting. The procedures for carrying out the restoration have been identified, divided into the following macro phases: cleaning, consolidation, sealing and grouting, chromatic balancing. The first cleaning phase involved the removal from the surfaces of all the layers that compromised the legibility of the original finishes starting with a general cleaning using vacuum cleaners, brushes and soft bristle brushes to remove less coherent deposits, and then moving on to specific techniques for the removal of more stubborn foreign substances using compresses and the removal of unsuitable materials.
The next step was to seal and fill the discontinuities present in the surfaces, also integrating the gaps present. This phase involves the integration, with specially formulated mortars, based on lime and any cracks, lack of plaster, etc ...
The last phase was the chromatic balancing. The pictorial integration allows to recover the legibility of the decorations and takes place through the punctual application, by brush, of watercolor colors and lime paints, allowing the reversibility of the intervention, the recognisability and the mending of the shortcomings, restoring unity of reading to the 'decorative apparatus
