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Paolo Verzone (1902-1982) A Journey in Time and Space | Restoration-3: Archeologic Restoration

"The works of restoration of the necropolis were not pursued beyond a certain limit in order to preserve the look of wild abandon conferred upon it by the passing centuries..." (P. Verzone)

Archeological restoration sites in the works of the Hierapolis Mission. A method for archeological restoration and recomposing an architectural image.

Octagonus
The monumental Martyrium of St Philip was the object of Verzone’s earliest archeological interests where, following his first experiences in Verona and Liguria, and subsequently in Side with Mansel, the scholar from Turin was free to experiment and define his personal method of archeological restoration previously theorized during his university lectures.

The primary objective of the restorations carried out under his guidance was to reconstruct the image of the architectonic complex, and its constructive and formal elements, by means of interventions that were limited to consolidating and conserving those remains uncovered by the excavations that were part of a detailed frame of interpretation.

In detail, there are evident signs of the work such as: the integration of the eight support pillars of the central dome with slabs of travertine, chiselled by hand (and still visible today because of their geometric cut, though perfectly blended with their surrounding); the adjustment of the walls of the radial chapels so that the interior spaces are restored and the roof structure can be better interpreted; the works carried out to protect the crests of the walls (the wall covers, in cement and ground fire clay, are still in place and in a very good state of preservation after forty years); and in the positioning of a support in tiling to preserve parts of vaults being repaired in the heptagonal chapels.

The Frontinus Gate
This constitutes the monumental entrance to the northern Domitian expansion of the city of Hierapolis. At the start of the works, the building was buried up to one third of the height of the three vaults and covered in limestone. The investigative survey launched by Verzone in 1957 uncovered pieces of the celebratory inscription in marble that ran along the superior architrave, the travertine blocks of the cornice and numerous architectonic and decorative fragments in marble pertaining to a second order.

The restoration efforts aimed to recompose the image of the monument, appreciating its urbanistic valency, and were limited to those parts that could be identified with certainty and that were necessary for understanding the object. Above the three vaults, surrounded by two circular towers, the walls were renewed prior to the re-positioning of the inscription-bearing slabs on the architrave; of these, only sequential fragments were recovered and repositioned in situ, while the gaps were walled-off by slightly disaligned bricks which can be easily removed and substituted with newly-found pieces.

Theatre
In 1957 the theatre of Hierapolis appeared just as it was represented in the prints by numerous European travellers who visited the site between 1700-1800.

From the beginning, the works focused on liberating the cavea and the orchestra from the earth accumulated by time and collapse, with little available by way of means and equipment; after locating the door leading from backstage to the cavea, the rails of a decauville were laid to remove the collapsed material. The large masses that had fallen in the cavea were lowered onto the plane of the orchestra using big wooden planks covered with soap and, using a manually-borne palanquin, loaded onto an ad hoc modified carriage of the Decauville, and brought to the area in front. Once outside, the blocks were arranged according their fall position to allow their subsequent anastelosis. The collapse of the front of the hyposcenium was instead reassembled in situ to carry out its restoration, which began in the 1980s, and that of the stage supports by reintegrating the horizontal support arches on the floor.

For the restoration of the monumental front of the hyposcenium, Verzone again adopted a methodology which aims to reconstruct the overall image of the architectonic object and its decorative parts through limited integration of the areas and structures, using a paste of white cement and powdered marble so as to re-position, without mimetic intents, the decorated strips in correct order. Other works were carried out on the cavea, on the scaenaefrons and on the substruction vaults of the galleries, again within a general frame of recomposition of the monumental complex’s architectonic image, urban surroundings included.