XV-century fresco

[DzikiZdeb]

I don't know if this section will be good, but I haven't found a better one.

While visiting Sigisoara in Transylvania, I saw a fresco in the local church with a lot of holes - practically the entire church is covered with them. Some of them have an additional, round indentation - as if from a rod or bullet.

Could someone tell me under what circumstances they might have been created? The church is from the 15th century, as is the fresco. In the 16th century, Protestants took it over and painted it over, or they could have destroyed it, but can these holes be a reminder of that?

[SC]

Looks like someone was prepping it in order to lay another coat of plaster over it???

SC

[DzikiZdeb]

Looks like someone was prepping it in order to lay another coat of plaster over it???

There was another coat of plaster laid by protestants in XVI century and it has been removed about thirty years ago. Maybe they reconstructed what was beyond the holes and left the holes without trying to repair them? A bit strange, but I don't know anything about fresco reconstruction.

Does this approach explain the occurrence of these small, deep holes?

[SC]

From my limited knowledge, the holes make the new layer of plaster stick.  So someone battered holes in the old fresco and then re-plastered.  When the new layer of plaster was later removed the original was exposed.  But of course where the holes were made the original is no longer there.

SC

[DzikiZdeb]

Yes, I understand that. That sounds reasonable. What I meant in last post was that in some holes you can see a much deeper center - as if an ordinary hole was, let's assume, 2 cm deep, and its drilled center - 10 cm. I marked it in red in the second photo. What is the point of these deeper drillings?