On April 10th at 4:30 PM, diagnostic engineer Claudio Falcucci, owner of M.I.D.A. Investigation Methods for Artistic Diagnostics, and his art historian collaborator Francesca Serenelli will present the non-invasive diagnostic tests performed in situ on the panel painting Madonna Enthroned with Child (c. 1505) by Saturnino Gatti. The tests, innovative in that they were conducted using portable, non-invasive systems, were conducted in the museum with the aim of documenting the work’s state of conservation, execution technique, and materials.
Restorer Nicoletta Naldoni, owner of Abacus sas, will illustrate the multidisciplinary restoration process for Saturnino Gatti’s Madonna Enthroned with Child, a tempera on panel with a gold background from the Cappella della Torre (Town Hall, L’Aquila), which will be exhibited again in June 2024 as part of the National Museum of Abruzzo in L’Aquila.
Claudio Falcucci, a nuclear engineer, specializes in the application of scientific investigation techniques to the study and conservation of cultural heritage. Over the years, he has conducted investigations on the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura, and over forty paintings by Caravaggio, publishing over one hundred articles on diagnostics and artistic techniques. Since 1996, he has been a contract lecturer in numerous courses in Physics Applied to Cultural Heritage, Archaeometry, Artistic Diagnostics, and History of Artistic Techniques at the Specialization Schools in Historic-Artistic Heritage and Archaeological Heritage at Sapienza University, the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. In 2010, he curated the exhibition “Caravaggio. The Genius’ Workshop” at Palazzo Venezia in Rome. In 2017, he was responsible for the technical section of the exhibition “Dentro Caravaggio” (Milan, Palazzo Reale).
Francesca Serenelli is an art historian with a degree in Medieval Art from Sapienza University in Rome, where she continued her studies, graduating in 2025 from the Specialization School in Historic-Artistic Heritage with a thesis in Physics Applied to Cultural Heritage. Since 2023, she has been collaborating with Claudio Falcucci’s M.I.D.A. Cultural Heritage Diagnostics studio.
Nicoletta Naldoni, a restorer, graduated with a Master’s Degree (LMR 02) in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the IsCR in Rome in 1990. In 1991, she obtained a specialization in stone artifacts from the same institute. A certified restorer of cultural heritage, she has been the owner and technical director of Abacus sas since 1991.
Naldoni specializes in the restoration of surfaces decorated with frescoes, tempera on walls, gilded stucco, polychrome and monochrome stucco, and plaster; movable works such as paintings on canvas, panels, and polychrome wooden sculptures; and stone works such as marble and plaster sculptures, architectural works in travertine, brick, tuff, and peperino, and mosaics.
At the conclusion of the presentation, art historian Daniele Lauri will lead a guided tour of the restored works.
We would like to inform visitors that Claudio Falcucci’s collaborator and art historian Marta Variali, contrary to previous announcements, will not be able to attend the presentation.
