Restoring Milan’s Duomo, one historic statue at a time

An ornamentalist chisels with a pneumatic hammer a ‘Doccione’ gargoyle at Cantiere Marmisti, the marble yard in Milan. — Photos: AFP

In a workshop in the Milan suburbs, sculptor Giovanni Calderino completes his latest project – a battered statue from the top of the Italian city’s gothic cathedral, and its gleaming white replacement.

Depicting a bearded man wearing a tunic, the marble statue has adorned one of the Duomo’s 135 spires for two centuries.