Week 14 – The Holiday Season, and the Poor Durability of Peperino

The holiday season is now fully upon us here in Rome.   Last Tuesday, Dec. 8, was  the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a national holiday here in Italy – banks are closed, schools are closed, etc.   Italian families traditionally put-up their Christmas tree and crèche displays on this day.   It’s also unofficially the start of the Christmas season in Italy.   Many people took-off work on Monday (the day before), to create a four day weekend and prepare for the holidays.   Thus, last Monday, the shops and streets in Rome’s Centro bustled with Christmas shoppers in a way that I hadn’t previously seen before.

Christmas tree in the salone of the McKim Mead and White Building

Holiday preparations are also well underway at the American Academy.  The Academy’s Christmas tree went up this past Friday morning (in an enormous terra cotta pot) in the salone of the McKim Mead and White Building.   Friday after dinner was the tree-trimming.  This coming Thursday, Dec. 17, in an annual Academy tradition, we (this year’s Fellows) will put-on a Christmas play for the Academy’s staff and their children, so preparations are in full swing for the play. 

After a cold spell in late October, we’ve been fortunate to have warm mild temperatures through much of November and now early December.  Lately, the daily high temperature is typically around 50 degrees F, and it usually gets down to around 45deg. F for the overnight low.   Certainly nothing like New England at this time of year – the winters here in Rome are mild, and freezing temperatures are very uncommon.   This is one reason (among others) that Ancient Roman constructions here in Central Italy are so much more intact than those in northern Europe (for example, Germany), where winters and freeze/thaw cycles are more severe.   It’s also a reason that some of my archaeology and classical studies colleagues here have told me that if I REALLY want to see incredibly intact monumental ancient Roman masonry construction, I should go to North Africa.  That makes perfect sense to me – the deserts of North Africa are almost an ideal place to preserve a stone masonry structure – no freeze/thaw cycling, very little rain, very little humidity.  Climate really plays a huge factor in the long-term durability of masonry construction.  I was reminded of this fact when I examined the Palazzo Chiovendo several weeks ago.  

Palazzo Chiovendo, front facade covered in scaffold and debris netting for restoration work

Palazzo Chiovendo is a Renaissance palazzo built in the 1500’s, just a couple blocks west of Piazza Navonna, and less than a hundred meters from Bramante’s famous chiostro.  In many cities the Palazzo Chiovendo  would be an important example of Renaissance architecture – here in Rome it is essentially a “fabric” building that gives the city’s streetscapes character, but that doesn’t appear in any architectural guidebook or map.   The façade of Palazzo Chiovendo was constructed almost entirely with peperino, a volcanic conglomerate stone that my Italian colleagues tell me was seldom used on building facades.  In looking at the Palazzo Chiovendo today, we can see why. 

As I climbed over the scaffolding with the contractor, the conservator, and a  professor of conservation, examining the deterioration of the stone, I kept hearing exclamations of “Che un disastro” (“It’s a disaster”)    I agreed.    

Peperino ledge, and one of the more intact pilaster bases, Palazzo Chiovendo

One of the less intact peperino pilaster bases (it was between the metal strap and the green shutter)

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In both the peperino façade of the Palazzo Chiovendo, and in sandstone facades I have examined in New England, it comes as no surprise that the worst deterioration occurs at the areas with the most severe exposure to water.  These tend to be elements that project from the face of the façade, and/or have a near horizontal surface, such as sills, ledges, bandcourses, and corbels.   Since Rome has little or no freeze/thaw cycling, it seems that it took about 500 years for a façade built of a low-durability stone (peperino) in Rome to look like a 150 year-old façade built of a low-durability stone (Portland brownstone) in New England’s more severe climate.   

The street approach to Palazzo Chiovendo. The scaffold and debris netting also protect pedestrians and traffic from falling hazards.

All issues of durability are necessarily relative, but the roughly 500 year service life of the peperino façade raises questions of what is acceptable, or unacceptable, for the durability of a stone facade.   For example, is the roughly 500 year life of the peperino façade unacceptable,  because 500 years is only a short time in the construction history of Rome, and is only a mere blink of an eye in geological time, and after all we should measure stone durability by the measure of stone?  Or is it acceptable,  because the owners and users of the building are human, and 500 years is a very long time by human measure?   Or is it unacceptable because when they chose the peperino in the 1500’s, they had better choices available at that time – choices of other locally-available, attractive, not overly expensive stones, that are easy to tool and carve, and that are far more durable (like travertine), that they passed-over in choosing the inferior and less-durable peperino?   When discussing durability, it’s all relative, and it’s very much about making good choices.