17 The Annunciation retable had collapsed and had been provisionally re-erected by local labour. The stone altar table also exhibited dangerous structural weaknesses. An essential first step was taken in the summer of 2002: as a basic prerequisite for the subsequent restoration work, a specialised company was contracted to fumigate all of the church’s wooden elements with methyl bromide to combat the insect infestation. Description of the retable The altar stipes on a two-tier stepped podium is composed of rough-hewn limestone supporting three more or less rectangular limestone slabs serving as the mensa.20 A depository is embedded in the central mensa slab. The front of the stipes, covered by the gold leather antependium, is decorated with a mortar cross. The retable, mounted on the mensa in the classical form of an aedicula, provides a magnificent architectural frame for the altarpiece. A distinctive pedestal zone on either side of the stipes attests to the architectural character of the design. The predella rises above the mensa with protruding postaments for the two half-columns of Corinthian order that support the entablature with an ornamentally carved lower part and fluted shaft. Together with flat jambs, these columns form the niche for the painting. The broken pediment corresponds to the sequence of frieze and cornice of the entablature. The central surfaces of the predella and frieze are richly ornamented Fig. 14: Annunciation retable; gilt-leather antependium ‚La B. V. dell Annunciata’
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