After the successful completion of the first bay of Vincenzo Manno’s (1760-1821) ceiling decoration on the Life of St Paul at the Mdina Cathedral, ReCoop Ltd, under the direction of the Cathedral Chapter, was again entrusted to conduct the restoration and conservation of the vault’s second and third bays.

The vault decoration was executed using the fresco technique by the talented late Baroque Palermitan artist Vincenzo Manno. It was carried out in the early 1790s on models produced by Vincenzo’s brother Antonio Manno.

The ceiling decoration suffered considerably from humidity caused by the penetration of water from the ceiling. Because of this, the ceiling decoration underwent various past restoration interventions. ReCoop conservators noted that large areas of the fresco were covered by over-painting using oils, varnish and glue. These had discoloured by time and hindered the readability of most of the fresco. The frames surrounding the scenes were either lost or re-gilded in previous restoration interventions.

The conservation and restoration project of the second bay commenced early this year by the ReCoop team under the supervision of conservators Roderick Abela B.Cons (Hons) and Paul Muscat MA, with Prof. Keith Sciberras as consultant art historian. The conservation treatment included photographic and graphical documentation and the consolidation, cleaning, and presentation processes of the paint layer. Further work was undertaken on the gilded areas which were re-gilded using the intended traditional water gilding technique. Water-proofing of the ceiling was carried out by the Cathedral Chapter.

After successfully concluding the first and second bays, the ReCoop team is now looking forward to commence the restoration of the third bay of the Mdina Cathedral.