Art
Zena Castle underwent restoration work in 1973 for the first time. Many frescoes from different ages were found. In particular, it was on that occasion that both the frescoes that cover almost all the big salon and those in the contiguous room and in the stairwell were restored. The three rooms on the ground floor were also restored. The last one has been recently completed, together with a fourth salon, the beautiful frescoes of which were restored throughout 2006.
Restoration work on the castle was started in 1973, when the decision was taken to start restoring the lounge on the first floor, possibly the one which was most devastated by the numerous wars that were fought in the area. In fact the fourth wing of the fortalice fell during the great battles of the eighteenth century. At the time the salon was totally disjointed and corrugated, the tiles had signs everywhere of the breaks caused by troops chopping wood. The frescoes that were known were covered in cobwebs and old sediments. After a first try, made by working on the frescoes first with plain water and then with fiele di bue, the decision was taken to firstly cover the ceiling. This was made possible by the help of an excellent man: Beniamino di Chero. It is to him, to his devoted simplicity and patience, as well as his great expertise, that the castle owes its renewed capacity to welcome guests, to join the dreams of the past to the reality of the present and to the great initiatives of the future.
It was at that time that the restoration of those first frescoes was entrusted to Assirto Cofani. He was, together with his team, the curator of the paintings that portray, on the walls of the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the tales of one of the most extraordinary Italian marvels, by Mantegna and Pollaiolo. As can be seen when one visits the salon, at the bottom of the south wall, the wall had partly fallen. However, having decided to keep to conservative and extremely stern restoration, he decided not to intervene, if not with glazing, which was to indicate the original size of the fresco on this wall, the right side of which was still intact.
Coffani certified that the frescoes in the salon could be attributed to the Bibienas’ school and were probably painted at the time of Duca Ranuccio – which coincides with the time in which the ducal family and the Anvitis were friends.
Duke Ranuccio, who had a preference for the Piacenza residence and environment, entrusted – according to Canotti – the decoration of some rooms and a chapel to Francesco Bibiena.
It is certain that there is a considerable similarity in style between the coat of arms painted by Francesco in Palazzo Farnese in 1682 and the one on the big chimney in Zena.
The discovery of the central fresco of the south wall brought great excitement, when a unicorn drinking at a small lake with a towered city in the background appeared. It is well known that in the Middle Ages the unicorn was considered a symbol of potency and purity. In China, for example, it was the royal device and it was attributed the power of punishing the culprits and hitting them with its horn.
Knights Hospitalliers lived in the Zena fortalice, as the fresco on the inner façade of the garden suggests. It is therefore possible to read in this sign the symbolism of a spiritual arrow, of embodiment of the Verb, and to interpret its legend as the charm that purity continues to exert on every man.
Cofani took care of the restoration of the frescoes in the room next to the stairway, also on the first floor. They were discovered when, after the south wing of the castle with the grand staircase of honour had fallen, another stairway had to be created by inserting a big room from the ribbed ceiling.
On both sides of these plastered walls, other older paintings then appeared, portraying warriors with strange oriental headgear and with city buildings and walls in the background.
Even though the frescoes were incomplete – a door had had to be opened to enable access to the stairway - the sizes in which they were found were kept intact, intervening in the missing parts only with the hatching suggested by conservative restoration.
On the walls of the grand staircase – which was probably built at the end of the eighteenth century – two big shapes appeared, one with Apollo playing the lyre, the other with a female preparing to dance.
As far as the first two rooms on the ground floor are concerned, it was necessary only to refresh them, because of their excellent condition. The first room is decorated with monochromatic frescoes with a green / blue background and bucolic scenes.
The frescoes in the second room, on the other hand, are also monochromatic, but this time with a background verging on red, and they portray groups of people in oriental clothes. (l)
In these frescoes the plasticity of the shapes is particularly to be appreciated, and is emphasized by the richness of the clothes painted (m).
The leafage of the decorations on the wall in the third lounge, which is now called “Stanza della Bandiera” (“Flag Room”), was in very bad condition. At the time it was not possible to save anything other than the beautiful ornamental panels, similar to those of Fontanellato Castle, a resemblance which can presumably be attributed to the kinship between the counts Rossi di Zena and Sanvitale di Fontanellato (n)
Only more recently was it possible to attend to restoring the more decayed walls. (o)
The excellent and unforgettable Antonio Albesiano, a painter of churches and an expert in the restoration of nineteenth century sites, was entrusted with the task of renewing the rooms that, in the nineteenth century were made independent thanks to the creation of a long corridor. Here too only light and delicate cleaning work was required. However, on the north wall of the corridor, a “witness” of the original seventeenth century intention was revealed (p). .
Grotesques on the ceiling (q)
Mister Albesiano then created the grotesques of the bathroom that, at the bottom of the corridor, opens its quatrefoil eye to the light of the fields. A delightful blend of imagination and irreverence, a sudden opening to the poetic freedom of invention.(q)
Previous condition (r)
Finally in 2006 very careful restoration work, carried out by Arianna Rastelli, with the supervision of the Superintendency of the Artistic Heritage in Parma, made it possible to reveal the beautiful frescoes of the fourth room on the ground floor (r,s)
Restored frescoes (s)