Vatican Museums

The rediscovery of 42 marble fragments, with inserts in mosaic and the remains of inscriptions, during the reorganization of the storage deposit beneath the Octagonal Courtyard of the Vatican Museums, is at the origin of this new publication, available in Italian.
The identification of the artefacts as a medieval marble frieze has indeed given rise to complex historical and documentary research, the results of which are provided in this volume.

Accompanied by beautiful colour images, the text starts from the rediscovery and the recomposition of the fragments found, then focusing on the events relating to their acquisition, up to the discovery of the origin of the fragments in the frieze of the medieval portico of Saint John Lateran. This is followed by the art-historical events of the Basilica, with particular interest in the iconographic history of the portico.

The second part of the volume is dedicated to the restoration of the pieces, starting from the date of conservation, the history of previous restorations, and finally a description of the current interventions, focusing on the results of the scientific surveys.
The volume concludes with an appendix comprising the archive documents in chronological order.