The conservation treatments, carried out either on manuscripts or printed books, indelibly mark the appearance of the volumes and constitute a part of their history. A study of the treatments is helpful both for the history of a volume as well as for the history of conservation itself. The Fondo Antico of Greek manuscripts in the Vatican Library was established between the first half of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Conservation treatments were carried out either before the manuscripts entered the Library from outside the Vatican (having taken place in Greece or in Italy, or after their arrival at the Library, taking place somewhere in Rome or in the Vatican workshop until today. The treatments are evident but have been sometimes obscured by other treatments carried out more recently. The aim of this research is to bring light on the period in which a volume was treated identifying the place or the techniques, and rarely the persons who worked on this. To obtain this, two approaches were necessary: first the study of the treatments themselves by recording materials and techniques, and secondly the study of archival sources with the purpose of retrieving information, relative names, dates and historical events. The technical approach provides details about the practices adopted by workers century by century, identifying teams, names of restores who signed their work, or workshops connected with the Vatican milieu. The Library accounts were of great help to that end and, in the future, will probably provide more information to researchers who will try to connect conservation treatments with persons and workshops in other collections of the Library. However, behind the techniques adopted, the materials used and the numbers or percentages of the volumes restored, the relationship between books and society has been essentially reflected.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:639825 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Choulis, Konstantinos |
| Publisher | University of London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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