Storia, intenti, obiettivi
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/15309
application/pdf
1973-9494
15309
en
Giovanni Carbonara
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
History, intentions, aims
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
21
Opening section
2022-08-02
2022-07-28
2022-08-02
2022-08-02
CSCH
Giovanni Carbonara
2021
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/15309
Emeritus Professor, Sapienza University of Rome
1973-9494
en
History, intentions, aims
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/15309/14542
21
H    ISTORY, INTENTIONS, AIMS


Giovanni Carbonara
Emeritus Professor, Sapienza University of Rome



     A high-quality Journal that tackles the themes of art, history and science together,
and enhances the results of their close and fruitful relationship, is today more relevant
than ever. This is especially true in a country like Italy where, unlike in the Anglo-Sax-
on world, this type of publication is not very widespread. Hence the importance of the
Journal, especially in the principle it has adopted since its origin, in 2001, characterized
by an openness to readers of various backgrounds, scholars, operators and young stu-
dents, as well as to an essentially interdisciplinary approach and, finally, to themes,
collaboration, cultural realities and different countries.
     It is not easy to open up to the numerous disciplinary issues relating to cultural and
environmental heritage, understood in its broadest and most comprehensive sense,
not just geographic. The international character of the Journal has thus intensified, so
much so that it is now a prevailing feature.
     Its interests are not only directed toward the past, to be studied and preserved as
a living testimony, but also toward the present, with proposals for concrete solutions
concerning various conservation problems, and to the future, with regard to the young
generation, who must be guided and motivated in their education and training, leading
them to think about the principles of protection and their application through the discus-
sion of meaningful experiences. All in a perspective aimed at recovering and enhanc-
ing the relationship between the development of science, technologies and humanistic
heritage, and always attentive, on an international scale, to the dialogue between peo-
ple and institutions.
     For a concrete reference to the interests and the open, but not generic, character
of the Journal, it is enough to scroll through some of the titles of the contributions pub-
lished in issue N. 20 (2020, 333 pp.), preceded by a meaningful editorial co-authored
by Salvatore Lorusso, conservation scientist and Mauro Mantovani, philosopher.
     The Journal addresses issues concerning both tangible and intangible cultural her-
itage which, though touching on various topics, all converge to show that without his-
torical-critical understanding, a scientific approach and theoretical mediation (i.e. reflec-
tion on the guiding principles and methods of conservation, because of the ‘values’ at
stake, starting from those of memory, testimonials, material culture and due respect for
the signs of time) there is no real restoration or conscious conservation.
     They range from an interdisciplinary study on the Last Supper (1507-09) of the Ab-
bey of Tongerlo, in Belgium, and its attribution to the Milanese workshop of Leonardo
da Vinci, to another on the conservation and re-organization of the collection of exca-
vated bone finds from the Lombard period housed in the “Giuseppe Sergi” Museum of
Anthropology in Rome, since 1901; from critical considerations on the restoration, con-
ducted in Egypt, of a series of sculpted representations of the pharaoh, Ramesses II,
deformed by a bad interpretation of their geometry, to questions, always linked to the
theme of relief, of the application of HBIM in China, in the case of an ancient village;
from the techniques of conservation of beech wood in artefacts exposed to outdoor en-
vironmental agents, to the characteristics of medieval mortars in the southern European
area. There is no shortage of articles, for example, on the attitude of tourists to histor-
ical heritage and on their high willingness to pay a reasonable amount in order to visit a
site of interest; this is based on a survey conducted in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. It even
includes a paper on traditional Jordanian music and the influence of Covid 19 on the
environment, the relationship with food, and culture. But, looking through the issues of
these two decades, a great many other stimuli and answers can be found. Everything
is presented in Italian and English in descriptive summaries, with the decisive and now
prevalent contribution of international authors and with ample sensitivity and openness
also towards emerging countries, such as Asia, Africa and Latin America.
     In conclusion, it is also to be noted how the Journal’s historical-scientific and histor-
ical-technical interest has had recurrent anticipations in its past, attention to the an-
cient and its conservation, from the very beginning. In terms of prevention, if one thinks
of how anti-seismic providence, as Pliny the Elder narrates, was applied in the con-
struction of the temple of Artemis in Ephesus (6th century BC) by laying, under the
foundation and the stylobate, a bed of clay, mixed with coal and ash, to dampen the ef-
fects of the horizontal thrusts induced by earthquakes; or of knowledge and dating,
with the role played by Cardinal Niccolò Stenone during the seventeenth century, in de-
fining a stratigraphic science which was born to answer questions about the real histo-
ry of the Earth and therefore about the time of the Creation in relation to what can be
gleaned from the Bible as well as other questions of a strictly geological nature. This
science was then transferred to a different field, for example to verify whether it was ac-
tually Pompeii, from the time of the first excavations in the eighteenth century, to a few
decades ago, to delineate modern archaeological excavation methods using stratigra-
phy. Astronomy is another example and was used between the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries, to try to date the prehistoric complex of Stonehenge, near Salisbury
in England, based on the calculation of the variation of the earth’s magnetic pole.
     The Journal’s commitment is evident in its tenacious work, many precocious and
unpredictable anticipations, its drive for a sought-after interdisciplinary collaboration
and lastly, also in the importance given to more modest finds, as if to foreshadow mod-
ern interest in the aspects of everyday socio-economic life and the expressions of sim-
ple ‘material culture’. There is interest in stones, ranging from the techniques used to
work and craft them, to embryonic methods of petrographic physico-chemical analysis,
using microscopes, as well as themes also addressing prehistory, that is to say to illiter-
ate cultures, whose data could not be derived, as had been done until then, from writ-
ten evidence.
     Also noteworthy is the idea of using the pendulum as an anti-seismic function for
towers and bell towers or to counteract the effects of the wind in the spire of Chiches-
ter Cathedral, studied by the English architect and mathematician Christopher Wren,
but also applied, more or less in the same period, between the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries, in Italy. Or the case of straightening the overhanging facade of the
northern transept of Beverley Abbey, with props and jacks, carried out by the English
architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, always in the same period.
     To confirm the fruitfulness of the relationship between Art and Science (Lorusso
however affirms, “Art is Science”) a recent study conducted by the Department of
Chemical and Geological Sciences of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,
specifically by Professor Stefano Lugli, has put some order in the dilemma of dating the
vaults, of fifteenth-century origin (1404- 1454), in the medieval Cathedral of Modena,
which were extensively modified following numerous earthquakes. From the analysis
of the mortars, lime-based, then gypsum-based, at first, it was possible to recognize a
certain multiplicity of interventions, but in the end, by integrating other analyses based
on Carbon 14, studying the pollen incorporated in them and on the bricks (new or reused
Roman bricks), five different types of mortars were identified lime-based for the phases
of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, gypsum-based for the 18th and 19th centuries,
used in the first building, in the reconstruction of entire vaults and to repair them. It was
thus possible to obtain the outline of a complex seismic event, the damage and subse-
quent repairs, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed, providing new material for
historical reflection but also helping to understand the seismic weaknesses and conse-
quent prospects for strengthening the Cathedral.
    The beginnings of this fruitful interaction between historical questions and scientif-
ic answers, conducted on the materials constituting ancient works, can be found at the
beginning of the Renaissance, between the late fourteenth and early decades of the fif-
teenth century, when, as in the singular case of the attempt to verify the authenticity of
the Holy House of Loreto, it was no longer only the written text that was questioned (in-
direct evidence) but the physical reality of the object in question as well (direct evi-
dence), by comparing, through repeated missions to the Holy Land, the construction
stones in Nazareth and those in the area around Ancona.
    Our Journal is based today on this noble tradition which, together with archeology,
has contributed to enormously expanding the possibility of obtaining new historical
‘documents’.
