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Non-destructive mapping of dampness and salts in degraded wall paintings in hypogeous buildings: the case of St. Clement at mass fresco in St. Clement Basilica, Rome

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Abstract

As is well known, the deterioration of wall paintings due to the capillary rise of water through the walls is a very widespread problem. In this paper, a study of microclimate monitoring, unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and evanescent-field dielectrometry (EFD) was applied to map non-destructively, in situ, and in a quantitative way the distribution of the moisture in an ancient deteriorated wall painting of the eleventh century. Both unilateral NMR and EFD are quite new, fully portable, and non-destructive techniques, and their combination is absolutely new. The approach reported here is proposed as a new analytical protocol to afford the problem of mapping, non-destructively, the moisture in a deteriorated wall painting in a hypogeous building such as that of the second level of St. Clement Basilica, Rome (Italy), where the use of IR thermography is impaired due to the environmental conditions, and the gravimetric tests are forbidden due to the preciousness of the artifact. The moisture distribution was mapped at different depths, from the very first layers of the painted film to a depth of 2 cm. It has also been shown how the map obtained in the first layers of the artwork is affected by the environmental conditions typical of a hypogeous building, whereas the maps obtained at higher depths are representative of the moisture due to the capillary rise of water from the ground. The quantitative analysis of the moisture was performed by calibrating NMR and EFD signals with purposely prepared specimens. This study may be applied before and after performing any intervention aimed at restoring and improving the state of conservation of this type of artwork and reducing the dampness or extracting salts (driven by the variation of moisture content) and monitoring the effectiveness of the performed interventions during the time. This protocol is applicable to any type of porous material.

Map of the distribution of moisture content obtained by unilateral NMR at about 0.5 cm of depth (left) and by EFD at about 2 cm of depth (right)

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by PAPERTECH project, contract n.509095, operating within the VI European Framework. We thank the Director of the wall paintings restoration work dr. Giulia Tamanti and the Director of the architectural intervention arch. Francesco Sacco and for the cooperation and interest in new methodologies. We are grateful to the restorers Anna Maria Marinelli and Barbara Provinciali and to dr. Paola Santopadre of the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro (ISCR) of Rome for the useful discussion and suggestions during the work in St. Clement Basilica.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio di Risonanza Magnetica “Annalaura Segre”, Istituto di Metodologie Chimiche, CNR, Area della Ricerca di Roma, Via Salaria Km. 29,300, 00016 Monterotondo Scalo, Rome, Italy

    Valeria Di Tullio, Noemi Proietti, Marco Gobbino & Donatella Capitani

  2. Istituto di Fisica Applicata Nello Carrara, CNR, Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy

    Roberto Olmi, Saverio Priori & Cristiano Riminesi

  3. Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, Piazza San Francesco di Paola, 900184, Rome, Italy

    Elisabetta Giani

Authors
  1. Valeria Di Tullio
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  2. Noemi Proietti
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  3. Marco Gobbino
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  4. Donatella Capitani
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  5. Roberto Olmi
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  6. Saverio Priori
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  7. Cristiano Riminesi
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  8. Elisabetta Giani
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Correspondence to Noemi Proietti.

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Di Tullio, V., Proietti, N., Gobbino, M. et al. Non-destructive mapping of dampness and salts in degraded wall paintings in hypogeous buildings: the case of St. Clement at mass fresco in St. Clement Basilica, Rome. Anal Bioanal Chem 396, 1885–1896 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-009-3400-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-009-3400-x

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