Alvisé Boccanegra: Venice — A floating miracle

Materially Speaking

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In the third of our Venice series, Mike and I are meeting furniture restorer Alvisé Boccanegra who trained in restoration in the workshops of the Church of San Marco. He tells how he repaired a crucifix after Venice flooded in 2019.

Alvisé’s workshop is in the heart of San Polo on the ground floor of the building where he was born. Inside it smells of wood and linseed oil and there are neat shelves of brightly coloured powdered paints and a large selection of jam jars with oils and waxes.

Over the years Alvisé has collected samples of wood which he keeps in his wood library. This helps him compare the density, and other features, of different woods from all over the world and understand better how to work with them.

Alvisé tells of a very special project restoring a crucifix – a masterpiece by Guiseppe Torretti – which was found floating around the church of San Moisè after the aqua alta (high water) of November 2019. As he says in a Tweet (translated):

Thanks to #VenitianHeritage the crucifix of #GiuseppeTorretti (18th century) of the church of San Moise was restored, damaged during the exceptional high water of 12.11.2019. It is now on display in the chapel of #PalazzoGrimani until next February.

This catastrophic flood brought the second-highest waters since records began in 1923. It submerged St Mark’s square, caused enormous damage to homes and artworks, and left two people dead.

The photograph of this statue immersed in water was widely shared and became a symbol of the need to preserve the special, and often sacred, beauty of Venice.

Alvisé explains the delicate procedure, restoring materials that are no longer frequently used like mother of pearl and tortoiseshell.