Romanesque polychrome wood sculptures in Italy: a comparative analysis of the data from art historical and technical studies

The starting point of our paper is our interdisciplinary study of the largest collection of wooden sculptures in Italy, preserved in the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia in Rome. This study was part of a research project supervised by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, and financed by The Getty Foundation. It was an opportunity to focus on the use of polychromy in Medieval and Renaissance wooden sculpture in Europe. Among all the sculptures in Palazzo Venezia, is the so-called "Madonna di Acuto", one of the best preserved Romanesque wooden sculptures in Italy. The paper will focus on this extraordinary work of art and on other major Italian Romanesque wood polychrome sculptures, examined from the technical point of view, but also those sculptures which don't seem to have received much attention. It will be an opportunity to measure the state of the question regarding Italian Romanesque wooden sculptures in general terms, and see how deep is scholarly interest in technical aspects, compared to a more traditional approach, focusing on iconographic-iconological and stylistic issues. It will be the occasion also to see, and give as a point of discussion, how the research on Romanesque polychrome wooden sculpture has been disseminated to the public and if the virtual reconstruction of lost polychromy is a good method to make students and visitors of museums understand the original appearance of works of art changed over time.