Restauri di mosaici antichi nella Roma del Settecento: un contratto fra monsignor Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti e Nicola Onofri

An unpublished contract, preserved at the Carrara Academy in Bergamo, is of great interest for the study of the restoration of ancient mosaics in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century. According to the document, it is possible to identify Nicola Onofri, master at the Vatican Mosaic Studio, as the author of the restorations of two mosaics from the collection of Monsignor Furietti, found in Villa Adriana in Tivoli and on the Aventine in Rome, in which the modalities of the interventions, very different, range from the reinvention of the drawing starting from ancient fragments to the integration of small gaps. It is also possible to attribute to the mosaicist, an interesting personality as a hitherto little-known artist-restorer, the integration of another Vatican mosaic.