A new website for the Mora Samples Collection!
As part of the ICCROM Digital Transformation Initiative, this platform opens doors to over 1,000 samples of wall paintings from heritage sites and monuments in more than 30 countries.
As part of the ICCROM Digital Transformation Initiative, this platform opens doors to over 1,000 samples of wall paintings from heritage sites and monuments in more than 30 countries.
In Central Türkiye's Cappadocia region lies a complex of tucked-away cave churches carved from volcanic rock in the Göreme Valley. The most famous is the 10th-century Buckle Church (Tokali Kilise), revered for its illustrious Byzantine mural paintings.
This is a photograph of the upper part of the mihrab of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, a World Heritage site since 1988. It is a close-up of the half-dome, which is made of curved wood covered with thick plaster and painted with a complex vegetal motif - a common theme in Islamic art and architecture. The image was taken in 1973 by Franco Rigamonti and is part of a series of photographs documenting the restoration work carried out on the mihrab in...
In this photo from 1968, you see Laura Mora, a famed painting and mural painting conservator, in front of Stela 1, a Mesoamerican carved monument (stela), in Bonampak, Mexico. This relief area depicts an earth monster holding up the ruler Chaan Muan II, whose feet are visible at the top. The entire Stela is one of the tallest of the Mayan period at 20 feet (6.1 metres).
The Humor Monastery is one of the best-preserved of the eight Painted Churches of Moldavia – a World Heritage site located in Romania. These churches were built between the 15th and 16th centuries and are most famous for their well-preserved and colourful external frescoes that are inspired by Byzantine art. At the request of the Romanian Department of Historic Monuments under the auspices of its Director, Dr Vasile Dragut, ICCROM undertook three...
On 14 July 2023, we were honoured to officially receive a generous donation of RE-ORG materials to the ICCROM Archives. Special Advisor to the Director-General and a precursor of the RE-ORG Method, Gaël de Guichen, donated more than a decade’s worth of archival materials related to RE-ORG. On this particular occasion, Mr de Guichen and ICCROM Director-General Webber Ndoro signed the agreement that...
We are pleased to announce the launch of the ICCROM Records and Archives web portal, a new platform providing access to our Digital Collections and ICCROM's historical archive inventory.
ICCROM has recently received a donation of valuable records produced by Paolo and Laura Mora, two internationally renowned Italian conservators. This photograph, taken by Paolo Mora in 1962, depicts the Temple of Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel before its transfer to a new location with the start of the Aswan High Dam project.
One of the ICCROM Archives’ largest sample collections is the Mora Samples Archive, donated by famous conservators Laura and Paolo Mora for teaching and research purposes. Many of the samples are from world-renowned heritage places, such as the Tomb of Nefertari, where sampling is no longer allowed. The collection currently includes 1 200 samples collected from the 1960s to the 1980s from heritage...
Once upon a time, there lived a man called Saint George who served as a soldier in the Roman army. Legend has it that he heroically defeated a fire-breathing dragon to save a princess from her castle. This iconography was beautifully illustrated in the 14th century in a fresco within the Venzone Cathedral of Sant’Andrea Apostolo in Friuli – a northeast Italian region bordering Austria, Slovenia and the Adriatic Sea.