A heritage to be preserved: the "Maria Luisa Rossi" School for Artisan Restorers

The “Maria Luisa Rossi” School for Artisan Restorers is based at the Arsenale della Pace and is an artistic training school recognized and accredited by the Piedmont Region as a Regional Training Agency, with the possibility of accessing funding from the European Social Fund ( and therefore to offer free professional training courses) and to issue a certificate that can be used in the world of work, valid throughout the national and community territory.

Italy possesses an artistic heritage that is unparalleled in the world and has the task of preserving this important legacy to transform it into wealth for its future. This will only happen if adequate resources are invested to keep this wealth alive and hand it over to the generations that follow us. Sermig has always looked at young people with confidence and offers them, together with strong ideals, the proposal to learn the ancient professions of art and restoration and develop creative genius and manual skills.

The school wishes to offer young people the opportunity to develop artistic aptitudes, creative abilities and to learn the difficult practice of restoration, to create new job opportunities in the field of conservation of national and international artistic heritage. Followed and supported by expert teachers and masters, the students are guided in learning both the ancient restoration techniques and the use of the most recent technological discoveries for restoration, thus transforming the idea of ​​the old and dusty artisan workshop into a real modern art laboratory.

In 1994, the intuition of Ernesto Olivero's Sermig, the generous industriousness of Maria Luisa Rossi and the initial availability of the Piedmontese Association of Art Restorers allowed the birth of the school. Since 1997 the activities have found hospitality within the walls of the old Savoy weapons factory which became the Arsenal of Peace. Maria Luisa Rossi herself, heir to a large family of antique dealers from Turin, was an animator and supporter of the school throughout her life, becoming its president.

In 2009 the school moved to larger premises, still within the Arsenale, which includes: nine laboratories for art professions and restoration, two classrooms for theory, a lecture hall, a applied chemistry, a computer laboratory with an audiovisual system, a classroom equipped for technical and ornamental drawing, a laboratory for photography and diagnostics, a specialist library.

The school, as part of its training activities financed by the Piedmont Region, has always collaborated with the most important public and private institutions in the area in which it operates. For this reason, and to give students the opportunity to contribute to the recovery of important and valuable artefacts of our historical-artistic heritage, it has created a virtuous circuit which allows the resources entrusted to the school to be used to make works of art that are not otherwise they would have the possibility of being preserved.

In addition to the institutional interlocutors linked to the territory (Piedmont Region, Metropolitan City of Turin, Municipality of Turin and several other municipalities in the region), we also remember: the Regional Directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage and all the Superintendencies of Piedmont, the Regional Museums Directorate Piedmont, the Archaeological Superintendence of Emilia Romagna, the Museum of Antiquities and the Egyptian Museum of Turin, Palazzo Reale, the Racconigi Castle, Palazzo Chiablese, Palazzo Cavour, Palazzo Madama, the Archdiocese of Turin, the Confraternity of the SS. Sudario and some Art Institutes of the Province of Turin.

26 YEARS OF ACTIVITY
15 courses provided
172,000 hours of lessons carried out
890 qualified students
420 between artistic projects, construction sites and restoration works

photo: Max Ferrero

NPEYES
NP February 2024