Restoration of Gallerie delle Prigioni

The former prison building has listed status under the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, with reference to both the appearance of the facade and the landscape. Here, the ancient facade.

Prior to the restoration, the building was in a serious state of decay, resulting from years of abandonment and neglect. Clearly evident were the rotting wooden roof structures, the broken roof covering and water infiltration, which began when the building was abandoned and continued thereafter. Moreover, the detachment of plasterwork, stains caused by the corrosion of gratings and other metal elements and cracks in the stonework were present on most of the external facades.

The starting point for the conservative restoration project was the need to consolidate and restore all the elements of the building, eliminating those that were improper and unrelated to the original construction.

In the context of the use of the building as an exhibition space-museum, therefore, the main obstacle was represented by the conformation and the size of the original accesses to the individual cells: the beams over the doors were set very low so as to force the former prisoners to bow down.

As far as possible, the aim was to save the existing painting, which has been restored. In particular, in addition to the numerous writings that indicated the cell number or the function of rooms (infirmary, punishment cells, and many others) on the second floor it is now possible to view the depiction of Christ, the upper part of which has been preserved and, on the opposite wall of the same floor, a representation of the Madonna. In the “doctor’s surgery”, also on the second floor, a fresco of the city of Treviso’s coat of arms is clearly visible.