Antonio Sgamellotti, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei; Dipartimento di Chimica, Biologia e Biotecnologie, Università degli Studi di Perugia; Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie Chimiche, CNRSCITEC, Perugia.

EGYPTIAN BLUE IN RAPHAEL’S FRESCOES AT VILLA FARNESINA, ROME

Egyptian blue, the oldest artificial pigment in art history, has known changing fortunes since its appearance. From its almost exclusive use in antiquity and during the Roman Empire, its presence became rarer in the Middle Ages and slowly vanished. It reappeared during the Renaissance and then again at the end of the XIX and early XX century. At the end of the XX century, the discovery of peculiar spectroscopic features owned by Egyptian Blue paved the way for new materials in the field of energy production and biosensors but also for the possibility of identifying Egyptian Blue much more easily in artworks by using completely non-invasive imaging techniques that allowed for mapping its distribution. This presentation focuses on the return of Egyptian Blue in the Renaissance set off by its discovery on the entire surface of Raphael's Triumph of Galatea (1511/12) in Villa Farnesina, Rome. This is, so far, the first case of its use in the Renaissance after a long oblivion, followed about a decade later by three other occurrences concerning paintings from Ferrara. Very recently its presence was discovered also in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche in Villa Farnesina, not on the surface but as a preparatory layer for the outermost colored one. Starting from the experimental data collected so far, new keys are provided to understand the more or less conscious use of Egyptian blue by Renaissance artists, comparing its composition and methods of use in their works and highlighting the importance of non-invasive analysis
as a fundamental hermeneutic tool for art historians.