“Il Duomo di Barga – Storia, arte e spiritualità nei primi tre secoli dopo il Mille” – “The cathedral of Barga – History, Art and Spirituality in the three centuries after the year 1000” Presentazione edizione in italiano a cura del prof. Stefano Borsi – Presentazione edizione in inglese a cura del giornalista Frank Viviano – Saturday 18th June – Hotel Villa Moorings – 9 pm
Stampato da Bandecchi e Vivaldi, il nuovo libro sulla storia del Duomo di Barga realizzato dalla Polisportiva Val di Lago di Barga. “Il Duomo di Barga. Storia, arte e spiritualità nei primi tre secoli dopo il Mille”, raccoglie gli interventi della conferenza sulla storia e sul culto del Duomo che venne organizzata a Barga la scorsa estate con i contributi di Pier Carlo Marroni, Pier Giuliano Cecchi, Antonio Nardini, Giancarlo Marroni e del prof.
Stefano Borsi.
Antonio Nardini: An Eye-Witness Account of Restorations to the Duomo in Barga carried out from 1927 to 1939
When these restorations took place I was little more than a youngster and someone might ask how it was that, at that age, I was interested in those works and on what occasion.
At that time I was an apprentice in the photographic studio “Iacopetti” (later, “Pietrino Rigali”), known to everyone for over 60 years, which closed down a few years ago. Pietro Rigali was also the official photographer of the “Opera di San Cristofano” (Administration of the Cathedral of St Christopher/St. Cristofano) and it is for this reason that so many photographs (so precious today!) of the cathedral during the restorations have been preserved. For my part, I did everything possible to be present at the restoration work: Pietro loaded me up with the photographic stand, mounted with glass negatives measuring 13 cm x 18 cm, then, naturally he took the photographs.
Because the interior of the cathedral was very dark, especially in winter, it was necessary to work using a magnesium flashlight, and it was my job to make it work. To explain: the flashlight worked like today’s cigarette lighter – a spark created a burst of flame which floodlit the whole area. You had to close your eyes in order not to be blinded! Obviously, the camera had the lens open which then closed immediately after the flash.
Doing this kind of work I began to get interested in everything I saw and, whenever I could, I was always in the cathedral. I was 14/15 years old.
Thus I was present at many important events which, in part, I have already narrated and which concern nearly all the restorations of the cathedral over a number of years and which were completed in 1939 with its inauguration.
I remember, for example, having seen the construction of the boundary walls. These were built against those already in existence and the latter can still be seen today through the arches. The steps (known as the “Scalaccia”) leading up from the boundary walls to the “Aringo” (the high, fortified, area immediately surrounding the cathedral) were also entirely rebuilt, with each individual step made from a single piece of sandstone, difficult to move because each one weighed about half a ton. The individual steps were brought to the “Aringo” and then, from above, made to slide down into position on planking.
The “Aringo” has a low wall on one side below which there is a small, very steep, strip of land. At the time of the restoration, vines grew there but, today, these have made way to a line cypress trees.
I remember seeing on the “Aringo”, laid out in rows, all the stone blocks which had been removed from the cathedral. Each one was identified with letters and numbers so that it could be replaced in its exact position during the reconstruction of the walls.
Though it may seem strange, the bell tower was left as it was and was only reinforced with a structure of intersecting concrete trusses, still visible today in the interior of the bell tower. This structure was an integral part of the then new foundations which go down to the square lying below the cathedral.
Whilst excavating inside the bell tower in order to create the base for the concrete trusses, a number of well-preserved pine trunks, embedded in the ground, were found.
“Our history is our memory. Remembering what has been, what our ancestors created and the reasons which inspired the construction of certain works of art or monuments helps us to understand the present and discover its secrets and hidden meanings.
This is why I welcome with great satisfaction a publication on the history of a sacred place such as the Cathedral of Barga, with contributions from authoritative experts and scholars who explain, in a clear, direct and detailed way, not only the origins of this monument but also the delicate phases of its restoration.
This small volume offers a wealth of details on the history of the Cathedral, and on a long period of the history of the City of Barga and its people, through stories and events, legends and facts, and symbols and eye-witness accounts. Together with the description of the restoration works, the religious significance of St. Christopher and the meaning of the symbolism of the sculptures of the Cathedral, the section dedicated to the search for traces of the
Templars stands out in the way it interweaves with the narration of the enlargement of the building. St. Christopher is the protector saint of travellers and pilgrims who, on their journeys faced mountains, rivers and other obstacles which they had to overcome, and our church is dedicated to him.
I would like to give special thanks, not only from a professional but also a personal point of view, to the authors of this volume, to the Polisportiva Val di Lago and to all those who have contributed to this publication which, I am sure, will make an important addition to the many works which have been written on the history of the Cathedral and on the City of Barga”. – Stefano Baccelli – President of the Province of Lucca
Because the excavations could have endangered the stability of the bell tower, part of the cavity was hurriedly filled with concrete and stones thrown down from above, and the intersecting trusses were raised from there reaching up as far as the bell house.
As regards the interior of the cathedral and the roof of larchwood , I recall that the massive beams were unloaded at the square outside the “Porta Reale” (Royal Gateway) and brought, on pallets, to the “Aringo” by five pairs of men – the same method as was used to carry the sandstone steps of the “Scalaccia” to the “Aringo”.
For the restoration of the St Christopher, as with the sandstone steps, sloping planks were used and thus, after being taken down from its niche, the statue was carried, again on pallets, to the Convent School of St Elizabeth and placed in the last room which overlooks the tennis court.
During the restoration of the cathedral, the Supervisory Service sent to Barga two restorers – Santoni and Lumini – the first for the glass windows and the latter for the St Christopher. Lumini was a smallish man, with a grey apron which came down to below his knees. I remember seeing him at work, while he was scraping the surface of the statue. When the St Christopher was in the cathedral and before being removed for restoration, Pietrino Rigali was commissioned to photograph the face of the saint on which there was a large crack. I can also remember the room in which the saint was lodged – it had black and white tiles.
Because Lumini saw that I was interested in what he was doing, he took a liking to me and talked to me about his work. One day, when he was cleaning the surface of the statue, he told me that he had already removed eight layers of paint and that, on the face, he had found some patches of cloth, perhaps because the face had become cracked over time. Then, while he was using an engraving tool, some pointed bits of metal appeared. At first he took no notice of them but when others emerged he began to look at them more closely and saw that they were the tips of arrows or lances. Tradition relates that whenever Barga was besieged, the citizens would carry the St Christopher onto the walls to encourage the defenders. So, there are two possibilities: the “barbs” were either loosed in the church or over the walls, and these have remained fixed in the wood of the statue until the present day – if we tried to drive a nail into a piece of wood as hard as that of the statue, which is oak, we would find out how difficult it is to remove it. Perhaps, in olden times, they didn’t waste time trying to remove them, but broke them off at the level of the wood leaving behind the tips, whose presence would give credit to the ancient legend.
Another important thing concerns the discoveries made during the resurfacing of the cathedral floor. In front of the high altar a tiled covering was revealed. This covering was semi-circular in shape, about two metres wide and three or four long. Immediately, amongst the workers, there was an enormous curiosity to see what there was underneath, or, better, inside, and given that there was neither the provost nor the superintendent of the works, nor even the cathedral administrator and town mayor, Morando Stefani, the workers, on their own initiative, began to demolish the covering. I was there when part of the vault gave way and, as quick as a flash, I put my head in the hole. The fact that the roof of the cathedral was missing because of the restorations enabled me to see inside that subterranean room and I was able to make out three or four bodies of priests seated on two parallel benches placed against the longest walls. The extraordinary thing was that what I saw lasted for only a few seconds: as soon as the oxygen entered the vault the priests’ bodies dissolved into little heaps of ashes! For a moment I was frightened and actually believed that I hadn’t seen clearly because I was ignorant of the fact that such a phenomenon could take place. I climbed down into the room: the bodies were no longer there. I remember, too, that on the ground there was a small terracotta cup which, unfortunately, was not placed in safekeeping