TOP - Go to Photos Here how are being "restored" the precious marbles of the St. Mark's Basilica, crumbled by sulphation. As can be seen in the photos below, the so called restorations are realized plastering with mortar the critical damages caused by sulphuric pollutants coming from ships' engines fumes.
The so-called administrators carry on allowing the passage of great cruisers across the St. Mark's Basin, and the mooring in the historical port of Venice, which is not suited for the modern giant cruisers, in exchange of sponsoring and of false promises about the use of "ecological" fuels.
Day by day the Basilica looses its marbles: the statues loose their features, columns once smooth and polished are now coarse and looking like gnawed apple cores, capitals loose their ornaments and the precious carvings made by the great artisans of the past. Let's see this "restorations" more in detail: as we can notice in the photos, the pieces of marble are sticked together again with some mortar, that will be soon detached and corroded by the sulphur. The "restorers" also try to fix back the marbles to the walls with kind of copper cramps, that will soon flourish in sulphates and nitrates, produceing further damages. A work of great patience and resource-consuming, indeed.
The Basilica is treated like a broken vase to be stitched and glued again, without thinking to stop the vandal that, undeterred, thwarts any restoration effort, carrying daily on its attack to the marbles and the stones of Venice.
The Basilica (and as well all Venetian manufacts) needs, to be saved, first of all the lowering of the main damage factor, the sulphation; this can only be achieved preventing the ships passage and mooring inside the Historical Centre.
As it is not thinkable that a Seafaring Republic might renounce to the ships and to follow them through the epochs and their evolution, it is mandatory for the city to express a firm will of a competent and strong govern, able to subtract the Common Wealth from the clutches of the parties delinquency.
Only bringing back all public resources to their proper use, it will be possible to realize those epoch-making changements that the city requires with all her voice, to survive and to state again her dignity between the Peoples and the Marines. Only after climbing over the drawback of the bad habits and the subsequent political corruption, there will be a sense in talking of restorations made with skill and care. |