Museo delle Sinopie

A Pisa museum housing the amazing, full-sized medieval preparatory sketches for the lost Camposanto frescoes

Pisa's Museo delle Sinopie.Across the square from the Camposanto, hidden behind the souvenir stands along the south edge of the piazza, is the Museo delle Sinopie.

This rather unique museum took an artistic tragedy and turned it into an amazing educational opportunity.

After firebombs destroyed many—and severely damaged most of the rest—of the frescoes in the Camposanto, restorers discovered underneath the frescoes blackened remains the sinopie.

A detail from a sinopia.These rough preparatory drawings were laid down by the various medieval maestros for themselves and their workshops to follow as they painstakingly, day by day, plastered over small sections of the sketch to paint a portion of the final fresco.

(See "Fresco 101" box below to the right for details on the fresco-making process.)

Touring the museum is a bit like playing a giant version of those puzzles on the old Comics Pages comparing two pictures.

Fresco 101 - All in a day's work
In making a fresco, the artist first lays down rough plaster, on which he makes a rough sketch. Then, working in sections, he applies the smooth plaster that will hold the fresco, painting on it while it's still wet, or fresh—fresco is Italian for "fresh." This helps the color bond to the surface.

(Actually in true fresco, the lime mixed into the pigments bonds with the lime in the plaster, which actually pulls the colors just beneath the transparent surface patina as the plaster dries. Neat, huh?)

A frescoist can only lay down as much final plaster as he can hope to finish painting in a single day—each section is called a giornata, or "daily." The size of each giornata can vary widely. When painting a simple background, a good frescoist (or, more commonly, assistant) can whip out a fairly large section at once. When it comes to painting, say, the face of Jesus, Mary, or another major saint, that small face may represent an entire giornata's labor (and only the master would wield the brush).

In restoring frescoes, preservationists often uncover those preparatory sketches—called sinopie after the brownish earthen ink often used to make them (others are drawn in charcoal)—which offer unique insight into the artists' thinking process.

Each full-sized preparatory sketch has a photograph underneath it of an old etching showing what the finished fresco once looked like, so you can compare what the artist originally had in mind with how the finished product came out.

Sometimes positions of arms and legs will change, or characters will be shuffled around, or a saint or two added.

(To see better prints of those 19th century etchings of the lost, finished frescoes, visit the nearby Museo del Duomo.)

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