Attached are my final write-up on Restoration of The Last Supper and my powerpoint from the poster session. For the ppt., you can find the sources used for each slide in the "notes" section at the bottom of the slide, and all of them at the end; there's one article that I bought from Discover magazine online.

Additionally, if you're interested in reading more specifically about The Last Supper, I found a really great set of lectures online, given at the beginning of this year from an Italian named Lorenzo Matteoli as part of "University of Western Australia Extension." The english is at little questionable at times, but it's very interesting and detailed; each lecture focuses on a different aspect of The Last Supper' (the 4th is about its 20 year restoration from 1978-1999). Also, the woman who was actually in charge of that 20 year campaign, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, wrote a book about the restoration and it was recently translated into English (according to Matteoli in his lecture).

-- JessicaMok? - 05 Apr 2005

2. Regarding La Torre Pendente and the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa -- what struck you? What is particularly interesting about it, the way it started to sink, the way it was almost ruined several times or the way it was finally stabilized? Explain what & why.

Thoughts on the Leaning Tower's construction: The Leaning Tower is an architectural imperfection. Mussolini's view that the Leaning Tower must be straightened because it was an inappropriate symbol of Italy is perhaps too extreme, but in all truth, the Leaning Tower is leaning because its architects made a mistake in construction. With this in mind, it's interesting that the Leaning Tower has become somewhat of an object of reverence and even an architectural marvel. Knowing what I now do about the Leaning Tower, I wonder why its architects did not stop to re-lay the foundation. They obviously realized in 1272, when work recommenced on the Tower, that it was leaning; at this time, the Tower was only 3 levels high. Knowing that the ground on which the Tower was built was unstable, in my opinion, it would have made greater architectural sense to start over than to try and compensate for the leaning with additional curving. Another aspect of the Tower that interests me is why the pressure to "save" it increased so dramatically only in recent years. If the Tower survived for centuries without collapsing, even after Mussolini's concrete fiasco and Della Gherardesca's cantina, then why the sense of urgency to straighten the Tower in the 20th century?

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