Maria recognised that cracks were not flaws to repair, but invitations.
The cleaners worked in silence. They carried maintenance tools adapted for Spika’s ecosystem: buckets of charged rainwater collected from the thorns, mops woven from carbonized financial documents, and coarse Sphagnum moss cloths that retained the metallic scent of Alpine bogs.
The cleaning rituals were simple. Maria soaked her cloth in a solution of Sporosarcina pasteurii—microbes that consumed airborne carbon dioxide and secreted limestone. As she wiped, centuries of grime dissolved, their carbon reorganized into crystalline lattices that sealed the stonework’s cracks. The team moved by instinct, their gestures honed through generations of labour.
The regeneration spread. Around the rose window, stone saints shed their lichen crusts as new limestone layers formed—their eyes gaining a wet glint, their once-sneering mouths now upturned into smiles. Below, Spika’s roots crept upward through the crypts, their microbial cement seeping into fractured mortar to stabilize the foundations. The cleaners worked until the last industrial stains vanished from the stone, leaving only the scent of lemon balm and ozone
Revelation, not restoration. The Duomo hadn’t been fixed; it had been returned to a state predating Christianity, older than Milan itself. The cleaners had brought it new life through their silent labour.