ABSTRACT
The sad climate which reigned over Rome, no longer the European capital of Neo-classicism as it had been under Pius VI and despoiled of its masterpieces which had been ceded to France with the treaty of Tolentino, can be perceived through the fate of Daniele da Volterra’s Deposition. It was the restorer himself, Pietro Palmaroli, who evoked the circumstances which led to the decision to carry out the transfer of this painting, only second in esteem to Raphael’s Transfiguration (which nobody could envisage ever returning from Paris). After a disastrous attempt to remove it along with part of the wall (a massello) in 1798 (this had been carried out “without knowledge or understanding of the art”), which had resulted in the caving in of the vault, the work had then been left to the mercy of the weather, the rain and the rubbish which the soldiers billeted in the ex-convent threw into the ruins.
