RICERCA ITALIANA     

Humanistic research and new technologies - multimedia and diagnostic tools as scientific fundaments and technical resources for conservation, museology and art techniques

Università degli Studi di Firenze

Abstract

Aim of this study is to single out the technological tools meaningful for an arti-historical research integrating all disciplines purposeful from this viewpoint
The characteristic of the project proposed is that it revolves fully on the various areas leading the disciplinary sector L-Art/04. As known, it includes notably heterogeneous study addresses; the intention is to call in order to: 1) re-examine the specifics, the competencies, each other’s capacities; 2) study the possibilities for reciprocal integration; 3) identify the applicable cases in which introduce the competencies of the various Research Units; 4) Make a final balance of the work accomplished, addressing it to a real progress of the historical-artistic studies, in which to purpose a partially newer and more advanced model.
Moreover, from the point of view of museum research, it is intended to investigate, through a monitoring on the composition and extraction of the public, the peculiar communicative aspects of the museum implying sociological and economic aspects, to offer founding contributions also to the disciplines related to it, Museology and Museography.
The studies related to Collecting will submit various series of Italian paintings mentioned by sources and documents, in relation to their eventual appearances in auction houses, repertoires, antique websites, moving between paper and electronic databases, using the IT’s research facility; all not only in order to obtain more specific results, but also as methodological model.
For the part related to historical researches regarding the Restoration, we propose to submit to a new and more complete critical consideration the literary and technical sources of the seventeenth century related to the important episodes of painting restoration in the Tuscan and roman areas between the 1600 and 1700, in the belief of being able to capture research guidelines and inspirations that have been insufficiently considered also in now well known episodes. More specific studies will be dedicated also to the new venetian-friulan situation at the end of 1800, with renewed consultancies in the archives, especially the one of the State of Trieste, with the intent to bring up the meaningful episodes related to the system for the safety of art works, to the restorers and to the restoration, to the techniques and the materials used. Particularly interesting arguments, if placed in this geographical area between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy.
For what is related to the study of art techniques, today always more at the center of many interests directly to more disciplines, in the belief that the relation between the will of the artist and the technical mean represents one of the most interesting moments for the historical-artistic study, the specific project presented here intends to investigate the realization techniques of painting on mobile support in relation to the Italian painting before Giotto, taking also advantage of the exceptional experience of a great and world wide famous Restoration Institute.
A highly typical addressing of the project provides then an absolutely inter-disciplinary investigation lead on a corpus of works originated from renaissance prototypes. Archive investigations will be made as on the source and on the existing bibliography, to frame historically the replications, copy and falsification of the models, verify their critical chances and their impact on collecting. An important corpus of works will be examined through IR Reflectography in order to investigate the projecting modalities and the typology of under drawing, allowing to relate correctly the derivated work to its reference prototype, with a specific attention to identify eventual falsifications or higher performances.
Finally, a particularly valid example of pluridiscipline is offered by an innovative study on the archeology of the elevated, which will also allow the determination of the absolute chronologies. The case study regards the urban complex of San Martino and the Casino Malvasia nearby the city of Bologna, and the goods originating from these realities estranged from the original place and placed into museums. The competencies of various professions (the art historian, the architect, the restorator, the historian, the geologist, the archeologist, the chemist, the engineer), used in relation to the needs of the work sites and restoration laboratories, will become fundamental for the intervention itself and to enjoy the good in respect of the "open museum", also thanks to the multimedia instruments. <<<

Principal Investigator

Giorgio Bonsanti Università degli Studi di FIRENZE

Research Objectives

The objectives that we intend to reach are of two different types: regarding content and method
Firstly, studies in museumology, founded on the monitoring of some sample museums in Florence and Bologna, can make it possible to update and complete some lines of research that until now have remained rather insignificant, acquiring precious data for the evaluation of situations relating to the visitors to the museums in the cities of art. In fact this monitoring revealed previously unseen catchment areas, therefore the research results will certainly be important. Innovative tools will also be studied for the fruition of cultural assets inside and outside of urban museum institutions and in the territory, a use that is increasingly more connected with their conservation and ever more complete and in depth knowledge. Among the new communication methods, it is also necessary to consider the insertion of documentary films inside the museums, shows, tourist trails, in addition to the usual multi-media systems; together all of these are however showing themselves to be increasingly more indispensable for the correct and complete work in the salvaging of cultural assets and the information relating to them. They in fact make it possible to take advantage of a complete documentation of the current situation and the operations necessary for the conservation of the works, and offer them to the public in a way that aims at their full appreciation. These communication strategies can therefore lead to the creation of data bank on the artistic heritage of particular interest and be of use for all the operators in the sector, as well as for the diffusion of the results of the interventions. The conference and publication that will be carried out at the end of the research will make the results public, favouring a strongly felt need in today’s world. As regards the research into the correspondence between painters documented in various ways and research into the sources, carried out with wide use of multimedia means, the final objective of this phase is the organization of an archive capable of supplying useful material for the identification of painters signalled by the sources but not linked to the existing works. As regards the research into the works deriving from illustrious renaissance models the aim is to publish them in a register, organised on the base of a series of productive categories: the series of works and the contextual replicas of the model (i.e. autographs, or works produced by helpers of the workshops under the direct control of the master, or immediately after his death); the faithful copies, or variations, inspired illustrious prototypes and carried out in contexts unrelated to the master, also geographically and chronologically distant from him; the copies or pastiches produced with a fraudulent aim, both new, and through operations of hyper-restoration, i.e. through the partial or total repainting of ancient works. Thanks to the census taken of the restoration work that could be documented in the 18th and 19th centuries in the area of Tuscany-Rome and then Veneto-Friuli between the 19th and 20th century, the intention is to reconstruct the work and methods of the restorers, curators (state workers), collectors and antique dealers in these contexts. More specifically in the area between the Italian Kingdom and the Hapsburg Empire, the aim of the research is also that of comparing the methods and theories of the German and Italian restorers and the painters who worked in this still divided territory. Experience gained in the subject by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure during the fundamental restoration work undertaken in the last twenty years, will be of great use in the studies of the artistic techniques of Tuscan painting before Giotto and can provide extremely precious materials for understanding the relationship between the techniques and the expressive results from the painting schools of that area of production.
But perhaps even more valid are the results from a methodological viewpoint, offering an extraordinarily innovative example of the possibility of previously unpublished results obtained from a true and real interdisciplinarity. The parallel and contextual and, in short, deeply integrated conduct, of all the lines of the research, will make up a highly visible model of the disciplinary richness which can be enjoyed by the historic-artistic studies if conducted with the strong desire to collaborate that must characterise the entire project. It will make it possible to evaluate entirely the abundance and multiformity of different competences of which the disciplinary sector l-Art/04 sector enjoys. <<<

First Results

In the opinion of the National Coordinator, the principal result that we aim to achieve is of a methodological nature. Indeed, the Coordinator is sincerely convinced that an integral study, as proposed by the present project, is unprecedented, not only for its complexity and articulacy, but also for the fact that very different professional capabilities are aligned towards a common goal. It must also be underlined that it would be a very difficult task (indeed, it would be literally impossible) to realise a project of this kind without adequate funding to cover the costs of the study. There is no doubt that truly significant results could also lead into other areas of research that are already very well documented, such as the Tuscan Roman restoration carried out in the XVIII and XIX century. But other fields, such as the history of restoration, are still extremely open to research, such as the study proposed for the Udine Unit. This research would allow us to individualise: 1) the principal restorers who operated in North-east Italy; 2) the training centres, reference bibliography, and the materials used by nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century artists who worked in the restoration sector. The research will also describe the activities of the Institutions responsible for this task in the Venetia and Friuli regions, which became part of The Kingdom of Italy in 1866, and Venezia Giulia, which remained under the dominion of the Asburgic Empire until 1918. Therefore, these results would allow us to make a comparison between the principals, legislations and the methods used to conserve works of art in Germany (more precisely, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) with those in the Latin world, and in particular, works carried out in the Venetia region.
The second research theme of the Udine Unit, will allow us to clarify the working techniques and the materials used by active artists, between 1815 and 1918, in this geographical region, and hence, compare them with those of the other Italian regions and the Habsburg Empire. Another important result will also be the verification of the eventual transmission of knowledge from the scientific and artistic world, with regard to the procedures and theory of restoration. Knowledge of the methods used during the nineteenth-century would allow us to gauge recent restoration interventions in a more precise manner.
With regard to the expected results of the Bologna Unit, we must firmly underline the importance of recording the examined restorations. This will not only allow for the creation of a solid documentary foundation for future maintenance works, but also a database for scholars and a useful reference point for documentaries. Indeed, real documentaries will be made. These have revealed themselves to be excellent entertainment and educational instruments. Thanks to its ductility and potential, the documentary allows the viewer to apprehend, interpret and subsequently assess the value of a particular object, a museum, a restoration campaign, and above all — in the case of the museum trails, diffused throughout the urban and suburban territories —could be used as a connecting line between the various places and realities that compose the “diffused museum”; the object of our investigation. As recent studies on communication in museums and the public have shown, it is often very difficult to benefit from a cultural asset in the traditional manner. This method usually alternates the written text of the legends and explanatory panels with the work itself, therefore, using linguistic and iconic signs. As a consequence, a rapid passage is required from the approach to the work of art and the elaboration of the verbal messages into sensomotor perception. If instead of using a means that relies on an analytical procedure we use a means that depends on sensomotor perception, this does not occur: or more precisely, instead of using linguistic means we turn to visual means.
Therefore, in addition to the usual multi-media tools, we must invent a new way of inserting documentaries into museums, exhibitions, and tourism trails. Together with other forms of documentation, representations, and decodification of the works carried out (conventions, publication of critical essays), the documentary, which uses and combines various languages – images, words, music, cutting and editing – has an albeit artificial structure that is capable, however, of reaching and capturing the publics attention in a seemingly natural and totally involving manner. This would allow for the creation of a series of cross-references, previews, and in-depth studies capable of stimulating and preparing the public for the visit, and the reconstruction of a story through imagery that would be otherwise impossible. The idea of “visual permeability”: a constant flow of suggestive images between the city and museum, the museum and the territory, will be further reaffirmed by the presence of the work of art that, even when it is not actually present in the various museums, will create an indispensable cultural node for understanding the artistic process of the cultural asset on show, and will high-light and define the cultural map of Bologna and it’s territory.
The results expected from the Genoa Unit, are based on the consideration that the existence of a conspicuous number of works deriving from renaissance prototypes, poses the critical problem of establishing their origins and relationship with the model and other similar works. We know that over the centuries, both the production and the serial reproductions created in the artist's studios for collectors, were carried out on market request, and in many cases fatally led to the production of fakes with fraudulent intention. From the nineteenth-century onwards, the connoisseurship has met with many difficulties when evaluating these artistic products on a purely formal basis. Through the use of reflectography, our research provides an in-depth understanding of the work, reveals the various aspects of the planning stage, and provides new elements that allow us to differentiate the “autographic” replicas (or in any case, those produced in the master’s studio) from the copies and fakes. The analysis of the characteristics of the under drawing (instruments used, the peculiarities of the graphical ductus, the presence of after-thoughts, corrections, and/or modifications during the creation of the work) allow us to establish whether the same techniques were applied to the final work/model, or if the image was transferred using mechanical techniques. This information is extremely valuable and fundamental for settling controversies with regard to attribution, establishing the works authenticity, and also allows for a historical reconstruction of the distribution channels of certain objects and the manner in which they were diffused.
The research carried out by the Ferrara Unit, foresees the creation of a “Provenance Index” for the scientific community. This index, composed of images, will allow for the reconstruction of lost collections, and, therefore, research in the field of the history of painting, culture and economy. This would also allow for the creation of a database that could be launched on the market. With regard to the knowledge contained in the database, it is evident that the technical research in pre-giottesque painting by the Florence Unit, could constitute an important core of knowledge for furthering our understanding of the history of our country. Furthermore, the realisation of this project will undoubtedly provide precious information for the scientific community on an international scale. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Describing the state of the art relating to this project is objectively a little complex, considering the multiformity of the lines of research that characterise it. For each one it is possible to go into great detail, with the risk of it becoming dispersive. Part of the project is made up of the study of a data-base of images, relating to the citation of Italian painters from the 14th to the 18th centuries (from those unheard of to others widely known) and on the possibility of finding them in various types of places thanks to the consultation of the information to be found on the internet. Regarding this it should be said that currently the data base of images available are generally organised in alphabetical order according to the authors, and a few, in particular those of the larger museums, carry the external data useful for linking the work to collections. In this case therefore the state of the art shows itself as being substantially embryonic, and requires working with particular methodological effort.
In terms of the methodologies, in the research and didactics covered relating to the museomological and museographical research we have noticed the importance of an interdisciplinary methodology to the work that, if applied from the planning stages and initial phases, certainly facilitates historical-critical knowledge. It favours the interventions of maintenance and eventual restoration, allowing a scientific and ethically correct approach. Finally, it leads to a communicable result from the university lecture rooms to the museums and the people, thanks to the use of the most advanced multi-media tools In particular, aware of the museographic and museumological problems thanks to the translation and publication of Museograph, the first guide to museums written in Germany by C.f.Nickel in 1727 (Pigozzi and Giuliani 2005), the constant collaboration of art historian (Pigozzi, Giuliani, D’agostino, Medde, Boni) of restorer (Geminianu), of experts of climatology of the work of art and the conservation of the panel paintings (Monfardini), of chemist (Cauzzi), of the archaeologist of architecture (Gabrielli) a new professional figure, has been useful. (Historical data has been correlated to material data, assisting the work of a number of professional figures under the supervision of the Government office for artistic demoethnoanthropological heritage (Cammarota, Orsi, Rossoni). With the experience of research and publications of the scientific manager of the Unit and the careers of the professionals involved, the multidisciplinarity has been constant, and the dialogue between art historians, historians, professionals of restoration, museumologists and interpreters of the media has been regular.
Regarding the line of research taken on the painting practices of the Italian renaissance workshops, this is characterised by a double phenomenon: on one side, starting from the end of the 1400s, there was the habit of replicating figures or entire compositions on the base of cartoons and designs of the workshop became popular (C.C.Bambach, Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop. Theory and Practice 1300-1600, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999), giving origin, as in the cases of Giovanni Bellini and Lorenzo di Credi, to a true and proper serial productions of devotional works (F.Gibbons, Practices in Giovanni Bellini’s Workshop, in “Pantheon”, 23, 1965, pp.146-155; A.Gentili, Giovanni Bellini, la bottega, i quadri di devozione, in “Venezia Cinquecento”, 1, 1991, pp.27-60 L. G. Dalli Regoli, Lorenzo di Credi, Milano, 1966); from the other side, the fame of the great masters of the 1500s, in particular Leonardo and Raffaello, gave origin to the production of an impressive production of copies based on direct knowledge of the originals (or of other copies) but also inspired by d’après drawings and transfer incisions.
Starting from the start of the 1970s, the reflectography immediately revealed itself as an instrument of exceptional efficiency in supplying new the connoissuership with new elements for putting an end to the prickly problems caused by replicas and copies, and for better understanding their relationship with the models, based on the analysis of the underdrawing. Regarding this, it is worth mentioning the studies of the Madonna di Loreto by Raffaello (Fredericksn 1976; then Faillant-Dumas 1979; Fredericksen 1990;Galassi 2003), and of the Madonna dell’Aspo by Leonardo (Kemp-Crowe 1992) More recently, the reflectography has been used to investigate the dynamics of reuse of the models and the serial productions, that can be traced back to specific workshops. Investigation on the serial productions of Giovanni Bellini were conducted by Galassi (1998), Christiansen (2004) and Golden (2004), while studies on the way of reusing cartoon-models by Perugino and Rafaello is thanks to Hiller von Gaertringer (1997 and 1999) and to Galassi (1998 and 1999) with further studies on the workshop of Ghirlandaio. In 2003, the conference organised in Bruges on La peinture ancienne et ses procédés. Copies, répliques, pastiches (ed. Leuven 2006) took into consideration numerous studies carried out in this field with the help of infrared reflectography. It also covered topics relating to Italian painting, in particular on the replicas from the cartoon of Michelangelo with Venus and Cupid (Bellocci-Frosinini); on the replicas and copies produced at the workshop of Lorenzo do Credi (Galassi) and on the reuse of cartoons in paintings by Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo (Buzzegoli-Kunzelman). In the field of study of forgeries, the studies in Italy are matured, both in the definition of this phenomenon (Ferretti 1981), and in the identification of a large survey of manufactured articles (De Marcho 2001) and in the reconstruction of the activity of restoration-forgery (Mazzoni 2004). Up until today no systematic research technique on these manufactured articles exists.
Relating to the project of conservation of art heritage in the Veneto and in Friuli Venezia Giulia during the 1800s and at the beginning of the 1900s, it is to be revealed that it was influenced by the relationship of these areas with the German world. Friuli Venezia Giulia in particular, thanks to its geographic position, was the privileged place for the meeting (and sometimes battle) between the German and Latin cultures, until 1918 in fact, the Region remained divided between the Italian Kingdom (of which Friuli was a part) and the Hapsburg Empire (of which the current provinces of Gorizia and Trieste were part). This fact also had important repercussions in the sector of conservation and the protection of cultural assets: from the second half of the nineteenth century in the Region the most advanced European systems for the protection of cultural assets will be compared, that of the Zentral Kommission für Erforschung und Erhaltung der Kunst und historischen Baudenkmale (central commission for research and conservation of artistic-historical assets), founded in Vienna in 1850, and that set up after the Unification of Italy by Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. These two protection systems have been researched separately by Austrian and Italian scholars, but are still relatively unknown in the rest of Italy. It can also be noted that in this zone the protection of works of art on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian administration had a last significant episode, also this almost unknown, during the first world war, when between 1917 and 1918 the Kunstschutzgruppe of the Austro-Hungarian army occupied itself with the care of works of art in Italian occupied territories after the defeat of Caporetto. The conservation of the works of art cross each other as is usual with coeval artistic production, both because many artists were active as restorers and because the teaching and control of the restoration interventions were often demanded at the academies of fine art.
In the North-East of Italy the academy of reference was without doubt that of Venezia, but it is interesting to compare the painting techniques and the restoring methods used by Italian painters with those of the painters that formed themselves in the academies of Vienna, Munich and Hamburg that worked in this zone (like for example Gurlitt, Blaas and Heiunrich). These artists as well as some men of the state and culture (such as Karl von Czoernig or the archduke Massimiliano d’Asburg), who settled in Friuli Venezia Giulia, have already been the object of research, but their work in the sector of conservation of works of art has never been examined, and there has also been very little research made into the techniques carried out of the paintings of the 1800s and early 1900s done in this area.
As far as the museumology is concerned, with reference to the specific project propsed here by the University of Florence aimed at investigating the transformations of the museum in modern day, the most relevant contributions that concern the order and daily configuration in relation to its specific didactic and communicative functions, (the classic essay on the use of the work of art by W.Benjamin, 1936 remains as a methodological base), consist as much as to the cognitive and operating function relating to the Italian museums, in the writings of V. Verceloni (1994) and L.Solima (2000).
The use of new technoogies applied to the museum and the consultation of the virtual museum requires that the work of C.S Bertuglia, S. Bertuglia, A.Magnaghi (1999) and S.Monaci (2005) are taken into consideration.
Finally, taking into account that the knowledge of the conservation history of a work of art is an indispensible premiss to the modern preparatory phase of restoration, it should be said that the investigations to be carried out to know the critical thought on the subject of integration and conservation work and its development in time, appear of fundamental consequence for understanding and reconstructing the ideological positions and the technical peculiarities of the same artist-restorers at work from the Renaissance period until the whole of the 19th century. Of particular importance for the opening and definition of this area of study remains the text of Ugo Procacci (1995) that investigates the critical positions of Giovanni Gaetano Bottari which emerged in the Preface to the Riposo by Raffaello Borghini. In the Bottarian writings (1730) a precocious awareness is apparant of the value of the art of the ‘primitives’, united in an explicit taking of position against the integrative restoration according to the modality applied by Carlo Maratti to the cycles of Raffaello and ideologically supported by Giovan Pietro Bellori; and a first important invitation is expressed to put suitable prevention systems into act to impede the degrading of the works of art assuring the conservation side.
In the other considerations on the subject expressed for example by Alessandro Conti (History of restoration and conservation of works of art, 1973); Giovanni Previtali (who skilfully investigated the critical ideas of the writers of the 1500s, 1964), Simona Rinaldi (1996), who opportunely made available to the studies an anthology of technical texts on the restoration of the headstones; and from Roani 2005, in an investigation on the brief notes on conservation contained in the Considerations on Paintings (1621 ca.) by Giulio Mancini.
After the enthusiasm of the first studies of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s on the techniques and the treatises, of those famous ones by Merrifield (1849) and Thompson (1936), the state of the research in the field of studies of artistic techniques is unfortunately today quite full of gaps in Italy, while it is certainly more developed at an international level; the reference is to the studies of D. Bomforf, J. Dunkerton, D. Gordon and A. Roy (1990), gifted with an admirable didactic spirit. Little really exists beyond the general analysis on the techniques carried out by the studies promoted with a great intuition by Corrado Maltese (1973, 1990, 1993). Not much has been added more recently from the surveys carried out by Fabrizio Crivello (2003-2004, 2006). Sparse and disjointed news can be found only on the occasion of the publication of single interventions of restoration or in worthy initiatives such as those by M.G.Burresi, L.Carletti, C.Giometti (2002). In the tradition of the laboratory of the Opificio the interest in techniques has always been alive, at the start of the first pioneering contributions of Ugo Procacci, up to the publications done by Marco Ciatti and Cecilia Frosinini (1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005). Richer in contributions is, whereas, the research on treatises of art, carried out for the Cennini by F. Brunello (1982) and F.Frezzato (2003).
But lets conclude by saying that from the methodological point of view the state of art relating to the project presented here does not know in its complex many homologous examples; the ambition is that the future state of art is made up of publications of the results of our project. <<<