The photographer Massimo Vitali lives with his wife and son in Lucca, Italy, in a 14th-century church that lay empty for 17 years. “The church was used mainly for storage,” Vitali said. “There were mice and birds in it, there was water. In Italy, when you purchase an ancient church, you have to keep it open; you cannot divide the space into smaller rooms.” For additional living space, Vitali’s architect, Paola Sausa, attached a former sacristy to the church.
When Vitali and Sausa tore out the floor to pour the concrete, they hired an archaeologist to be on site. “Everything you dig up belongs to the state. We found tons of pottery, pieces that were beautiful but that had been used as filler. A job that would normally take a bulldozer three days took an entire month, as the archaeologist carefully documented everything she found.”
