Nuns plastered over them in the 17th century. Rome's Villa Silvestri Rivaldi murals are finally coming back.
On Rome's Via dei Fori Imperiali, a scaffolding-covered building draws almost no attention from tourists heading toward the Colosseum. Inside, conservators from the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro are stripping back centuries of plain brown plaster to expose 16th-century murals that a religious order found offensive and buried sometime in the 17th century. Whole scenes are coming through: marauding soldiers in battle, gods and goddesses, zodiacal symbols. The pose of the figure of Jupiter echoes Christ in the Sistine Chapel's Last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo under the patronage of Pope Paul III, whose right-hand man, Eurialo Silvestri, was the wealthy prelate who originally built the villa.
The Villa Silvestri Rivaldi was one of Rome's finest 16th-century residences, and the murals are attributed to leading artists of the period. The discovery is regarded as one of the most significant historical finds in Italy in the 21st century, sitting largely unnoticed beside the road to the Colosseum.
Source: Restorers expose trove of 16th-century nude murals in Rome that were covered by disapproving nuns (theartnewspaper.com).
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