Accademia Women: Violante - Part 1

AWA Legacy Fund, SUF and AADFI document new restoration with 'Part 1' of video clip series

What does it take to restore a painting from centuries past? This video begins at Florence's Certosa di Firenze monastery, with the removal of three eighteenth-century paintings, whose restoration is scheduled for completion in June 2025. Watch the largest painting – a ‘Reading Madonna’ by early female artist Violante Siriès Cerroti – being removed from its made-to-measure niche in the Prior’s Cell, along with two smaller roundels of Saints Agnes and Catherine, whose attributions to Siriès are currently under study. In this video clip, conservators Marina Vincenti and Elizabeth Wicks protect the paintings prior to their transport into the restoration studio. The restoration of these three works form part of a larger project involving research, conservation and documentation, conceived and funded by the AWA Legacy Fund, and organised by the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (AADFI) and Syracuse University in Florence (SUF).

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This video documents ACCADEMIA WOMEN: VIOLANTE,a project sponsored by the AWA Legacy Fund in Florence.

Project Partners:

AADFI, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno and Syracuse University in Florence

Project Donors: Connie Clark, Pam Fortune, Nancy Galliher, Nancy Hunt,Donna Malin, Margie MacKinnon and Alice Vogler

With special thanks to the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la città metropolitana di Firenze e le province di Pistoia e Prato, the San Leolino Community at Certosa di Firenze and featured experts: curator Graziella Cirri and conservators Marina Vincenti and Elizabeth Wicks (voiceover)

Featured artist: Violante Siriès Cerroti

Video by Olga Makarova