In 2023, more than one hundred restoration, functional adaptation, conservation and maintenance works were carried out on FAI properties. These works varied greatly in type and size, and saw us directly involved on many fronts and in different parts of the country.

NEW OPENINGS AND EXPANSION OF THE VISITING OFFER

A great deal of effort by the Foundation has been devoted to the restoration and opening of new rooms to expand the range of visits and make FAI properties more welcoming.

A Palazzo Moroni in Upper Bergamo, the entire piano nobile and mezzanine floor can now be visited in safety, following a complex restoration campaign that lasted two years and made it possible to transform the home of the Counts Moroni into a museum open to the public.

A Villa Fogazzaro Roi, a splendid residence overlooking Lake Lugano, the old cellars and storage room on the ground floor have been restored and adapted to accommodate the new ticket office, the shop with annexed toilets and a space to linger after visiting the Villa dedicated to the screening of Mario Soldati’s film Piccolo mondo antico.

SECURING

Fundamental to the project was the securing of installations, roofs, doors and windows and entire outdoor areas, such as at the Abbazia di Santa Maria di Cerrate in Lecce, or at the Case Montana in the Giardino della Kolymbethra in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, where in November work began on the consolidation of the rock wall underneath the rural buildings of the Houses.

VALUABLE RESTORATIONS

Other sites were dedicated to the restoration of decorated surfaces and architectural elements of particular value, such as at the Castello della Manta in the province of Cuneo, where, FAI continued work on the 16th-century wing. During the work carried out over the past few years, first in the Gallery and then in the Salone delle Grottesche, an element was rediscovered that gives great originality to all the rooms in the flat: the polychrome flooring with imitation marble inlays, painted in fresco with a very refined and rare technique, of which very few examples have survived in the Saluzzo area.

EXTRAORDINARY INTERVENTIONS

Last year, a number of FAI properties suffered serious unforeseen damage caused by violent weather phenomena, which occur more and more frequently and unexpectedly: at Villa Necchi Campiglio and at the Bosco di San Francesco we had to intervene with urgent extraordinary maintenance operations to restore the integrity of the sites and make them accessible to the public again as soon as possible.

THE MAJOR CONSTRUCTION SITES OF 2024

Parallel to the work in the field, the restoration activities also involve a great deal of planning and technical effort, especially for the major works financed with public funds, some of which have already begun in 2023 and will see us very busy throughout 2024. Restoration and landscaping on the garden at Villa Rezzola garden is underway; Recovery of four rooms on the ground floor of the building has begun at the Casino Mollo has begun; last summer work began also at Monte Fontana Secca, at the same time as the large recovery site of the entire malga financed by the Fondo Comuni Confinanti and private individuals.

Finally, major interventions are also imminent at the Castello di Avio (TN), and at Parco Villa Gregoriana in Tivoli.