“Updating” and restoration of the façade of the church of Sts. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti, from the
ninth century to the more recent transformations
The stratifications on the façade of the church of Sts. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti, from the ninth century
to the more recent transformations, enable us to review the very changeable relationship that each age
established with pre-existing and ancient architecture. After work to implement the provisions established
by the Council of Trent and later changes made in the seventeenth century – involving a programmatic
intervention to link «antichità e renovatione» – no more artistic projects were carried out on the church.
From the twentieth century onwards only functional upgrades were made to the church. The latter appear
as ‘involuntary manipulations’ of the design, ad hoc actions which, irrespective of the overall vision of the
monument, were unable to combine the requirements of contemporaneity with the church’s distinguishing
features.
