From Saturday it will be possible to admire it again in the National Picture Gallery of Sassari. After 60 years. Almost a historical thriller, the adventure of the wax modeling entitled "The cemetery scene" which portrays the struggle between men and demons in an ancient cemetery. It was created by Gaetano Giulio Zumbo , a Sicilian abbot who lived in the second half of the seventeenth century who specialized in subjects concerning death, illness and the putrefaction of bodies. He used wax plastics, an ancient wax processing technique .
The work had entered the collection of the National Picture Gallery of Sassari following the legacy of Giovanni Antonio Sanna. In the early 1960s, wax plastics were in a poor state of conservation, so much so that the Florentine archaeologist, Guglielmo Maetzke, regent of the newly established Archaeological Superintendency of the Provinces of Sassari and Nuoro, had to send it to Florence to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. for restoration. The restored ceroplastic was still in Florence on November 4, 1966, when the city was hit by a flood caused by the flooding of the Arno, with about 15 thousand damaged works of art, including, unfortunately, also the sculpture by Gaetano Giulio Zumbo.
From that moment on, traces of the unfortunate work of art were lost until, a few years ago, it was found in the deposits of the Archaeological Museum of Florence . Now the Pinacoteca and the city of Sassari are celebrating his return and will be able to admire it on display starting from Saturday.
On Saturday at 11.30 in the Pinacoteca in Piazza Santa Caterina the restored work will be presented accompanied by a lecture entitled: “Lost heritage, rediscovered heritage. The ceroplasty of Gaetano Giulio Zumbo ”. They organize the Regional Directorate of Museums of Sardinia, in collaboration with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure .
