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The present paper takes the cue from an anonymous letter sent in 1844 to the camerlengo Tommaso Riario Sforza to denounce the poor conservative conditions in which Veronese’s Rape of Europe, in the Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome, was placed. Considered one of the gems of the Roman collections, as the contemporary sources attest, especially due to the scarcity of works by Venetian masters in Rome, the large canvas was important above all as a model for young artists to exercise on colouring. Following this complaint, the painting will be taken over by the under-inspector Filippo Agricola, who will make the design for a new frame and will entrust the restoration to Giovanni Regis.

Giovanni Pileri, restorer working in Rome and in the Papal State, is a little-known figure in the Roman art scene of the 19th century. Tommaso Minardi’s student, he was defined by Ernesto Ovidi, the painter’s biographer, «the best of all the restorers». During his career, Pileri got very important commissions, like the restoration of the frescoes of the porch of San Lorenzo fuori le mura in Rome, or the restoration of the famous altarpiece representing St. Luke painting the Virgin, attributed to Raphael. Pileri obtained such important assignments also thanks to his master’s prestige as advisor about restoration. The reconstruction of Giovanni Pileri’s work helps understanding the mechanism of the 19th century artistic labour market in Rome, in a period of decline of nobility that made public commissions more important than ever.

The Putto holding a garland, a fragment of a fresco, since 1834 in the collections of the Academy of San Luca in Rome, has always been the subject of doubts relating to the autography, mainly due to the precarious state of conservation. The divergent positions, expressed simultaneously in 1960 by the art historian Luigi Salerno. convinced that it was a fake made by the painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar, and by the restorer Pico Cellini, who supported the Raphael autography, polarized scholars' opinions up to the present. This essay takes into account the novelties that have emerged so far in the context of the interdisciplinary study started in 2020 around the painting. which led to new historical-artistic research, new diagnostic and geometric investigations and a new restoration that gave back legibility to the artwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]