OFFICIAL NOTE ON THE RESTORATION WORK

Villa Forni Cerato Foundation is the guarantor of the conservative archaeological restoration of the homonymous World Heritage Monument, which is based on three principles:

1. Do not allow any transformation or reuse. We want to keep the place unchanged for use as a museum of oneself, a place of constant research and insights, and certainly of continuous new discoveries.

2. Aim for an EXEMPLARY restoration, that is transparent, documented, imitable, because it has to be shy, perennial and participative.

❖SHY

SHY,therefore non-invasive, but purely conservative, without additions of electric light, water, or heating. Here no transformation is allowed: a monument has the function of "memory" and "testimony," and the insertion of new functions "small or large, visible or not, modern or classical" could betray it. Nothing from us contemporaries must remain after the conservation work on the historical asset. But a building with 450 years of life requires a structural consolidation intervention, and this necessarily implies invasive activities. It is like a surgery performed by a team of doctors on a very elderly patient: surely the surgeon insists on transplanting younger internal organs, just as the structural engineer intends to consolidate the stability of the asset, while the plastic surgeon would like to reconstruct aesthetic functions, eliminating the wrinkles that are instead a natural sign of age; here the only objective is to keep the Monument intact over time, protect it from bad weather or vandalism, and guarantee the safety of the visitor."

❖eternal

eternal... , so that the Villa is never again abandoned to itself. The restoration aims to bring the object of intervention back to its original appearance, without any haste, freeing it from accretions that make its characteristic stylistic intent difficult to read. The reinstatement must be carefully weighed and evaluated, based primarily on the importance and the documentary and historical value of what one intends to reconstruct. Any minimal choices of ours that might create modifications must be well documented, having philological, objective, and irrefutable motivations. Since future research may suggest different and better choices than the current ones, it is certain that every detail must always be extensively documented, just like a scientific experiment, certifiable and repeatable. Within a dialectic inspired by doubt and therefore by a critical debate on the different options, one must always be aware that, when faced with a conservation problem, it is necessary to approach it in a non-prejudicial or dogmatic manner, avoiding the superimposition of theoretical propositions onto a constantly changing reality that can therefore never be inscribed within predetermined typologies. The knowledge acquired, the critical reflections, and the experiences accumulated during the course of the work program must be considered the heritage of anyone who cultivates similar interests.

❖PARTICIPATIVE

PARTICIPATIVE, the work of multiple experts and never of a single individual. There are and there will be choices to make, both for the conservative restoration and for the structural consolidation. The Architect Designer and Director of Works must list the various problems, possibly adding a proposed solution of their own, so that each participant of the Working Group can propose their own thoughts on the design choice, in a dialectical form, through debate, perhaps even in a conflictual form. These observations of the problems must derive from the comparative reading of various studies: the surveys of the current state, the analyses of the tests performed, the results of historical research, whether written or graphic, and the critical literature on Villa Forni Cerato and on the works of Palladio.

It is necessary that the members of the Working Group be able to compare their choices with a Discussion Table, the broadest and most competent possible, free from conditioning or interests that are not of a cultural nature. Around the table, structural engineers, architects, restorers, wood artisans, historians, laboratory chemists and physicists, experts in dendrochronology, archaeologists, as well as skilled craftsmen will engage in debate. We want the experts to be able to discuss publicly what is right and what is not right to do; only in this way will the Working Group become free to carry out an exemplary conservative restoration.

3. Respect the place as "sacred", reserved for those who know Palladio and love art, architecture, history. Villa Forni Cerato is a monument not suitable for crowds of tourists and forbidden to "customers"; nothing will be done to attract them with events not compatible with this monument. Precisely from the delicacy of this monument and the awareness that there is a duty to hand over its existence, originates this deep feeling of respect, attention and care, which guides the design work of the restoration of the Villa. The presence of a long period of abandonment, deplorable and destructive, gave birth to the desire to preserve and enhance this extraordinary building at all costs, just as requested in 1610 by its client Girolamo Forni.