Didactic Activities

This course is part of the Master's programm Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8537). The course is held in English language by Professor Rocco Mazzeo and Professor Emilio Cateli.

Overview:

Students will be acknowledged about the chemical constitution and degradation behaviors of different heritage and restoration materials such as paintings (pigments, binding media, varnishes), metal/alloys and restoration materials (consolidants, fillers, protective coatings).

Contents:

• Paintings and pigments: optical and chemical properties, pigment classification
• Binding media: physical, optical and chemical properties. Historical use. Proteins, glues, egg, casein, milk, polysaccharides, drying oils, modern synthetic binders.
• Solvents and solutions: solubilisation processes, mechanisms, concept of solubility, solvent power, other properties of solvents (vapour pressure, boiling point, volatility, retention, surface tension, etc.)
• Cleaning agents and systems: claasification of most common solvents, reactive solvents, enzymes, bacteria, ion exchange resins, laser cleaning, emulsion and surfactants, resin soaps, solvent gels.
• Varnishes, adhesives, consolidants, fillers: natural resins, synthetic resins, waxes, versishes and protective coatings, adhesives, consolidants and fillers.
• Metals and alloys: constitution, production technologies, deterioration and conservation-restoration

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This course is part of the Master's programm Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8537). The course is held in English language by Associate Professor Giorgia Sciutto. It is divided in 2 Modules with collaboration with Associate Professor Chiara Gualandi.

Overview:

Students acquire knowledge on new materials employed in cultural heritage for conservation and restoration (consolidants, protectives, cleaning agents). In addition, various analytical approaches for the material characterization and their assessment in conservation practices are exploited.

Contents:

• Principles of polymer science: synthesis, properties and degradation
• Polymer characterization: diagnostic approaches for the assessment and selection criteria of the polymeric material.
• Nanostructures for cultural heritage
• Nanostructured hydroxides and carbonates for consolidation.
• Microemulsions, Micelles and Gels: principles and application for cleaning cultural heritage.
• Analytical methods for the evaluation of the system performances.

The course is included in the educational experimentation project of the University.

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This course is part of the Master's programm Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8537). The course is held in English language by Associate Professor Giorgia Sciutto.

Overview:

The course is aimed at illustrating the role played by scientific examinations for the investigation of different works of art. The course deals with issues strictly related to conservation, such as material constitution, execution technique, state of conservation and treatments’ evaluation. To this purpose the possibility offered by the application of both destructive and/or non-destructive techniques to each specific question is presented, discussed and explained by making reference to real case studies.

Contents:

• Introduction to the Conservation-Restoration international community
• What is Conservation-Restoration, remedial conservation, restoration, preventive conservation
• The iteractive Scientific method
• The role of conservation scientists in answering specific questions raised by conservator-restorers, art hystorians, archaeologists, etc.

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This course is part of the Master's programm Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8537). The course is held in English language by Associate Professor Giorgia Sciutto.

Overview:

Student will acquire basic knowledge on chemometric methods for the analysis of data obtained from analytical investigations of cultural heritage. In particular, multivariate methods for the evaluation and management of single point analysis and hyperspectral imaging analysis (HSI) data matrices are examined.

Contents:

• Preprocessing strategies (derivatives, standard normal variate transform, detrending, smoothing, row profile, etc).
• Unsupervised exploratory methods (principal component analysis - PCA).
• Supervised methods (classification, regression); construction, optimization and validation of predictive models.
• Discussion on real case studies from Cultural Heritage researches.
• Hands-on session on dedicated software packages freely available (CAT, Polibrush).

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This course is part of the Single-Cycle Master's Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8616). The course is held in Italian language by Associate Professor Giorgia Sciutto. It is divided in 2 Modules with collaboration with Associate Professor Cristina Chiavari.

Overview:

Students will acquire knowledge on the composition, structure, properties and chemical transformations of the materials used for the creation of mural paintings and of the chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques for their characterization. In particular, students will be able to classify pigments, binders, adhesive varnishes and their chemical transformations and choose the most useful diagnostic techniques for the characterization of these materials.

Contents:

• Artifact-environment interaction: degradation and diagnostics of the state of conservation
• Materials and methods for restoration
• Characterization of materials and their degradation products, through metallography with optical and scanning electron microscopy with microanalysis (SEM-EDAX) and portable X-ray fluorescence, FTIR microscopy and X-ray diffractometry.

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This course is part of the Single-Cycle Master's Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8616). The course is held in Italian language by Associate Professor Silvia Prati.

Overview:

Student will obtains skills in planning a diagnostic intervention and in identifying and evaluating the most suitable materials and methods of intervention. The objectives of the course include identifying the most appropriate analytical sequence for the characterization of the state of conservation, composition and causes of degradation of movable and immovable assets and performing a comparative evaluation of the most appropriate materials and methods of intervention on different types of cultural assets.

Contents:

• Mural and mobile support paintings
• Materials (pigments, binders, adhesive paints)
• Chemical transformations
• Conservation and restoration methods
• Diagnostic techniques for the characterization of the cultural heritage materials.

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This course is part of the Bachelor's programm Chemistry and Chemistry for Materials (cod. 8086). The course is held in Italian language by Associate Professor Giorgia Sciutto.

Overview:

Students will obtain basic knowledge of the composition, causes and processes of degradation and of the materials and methods of intervention of stone and metal artefacts, mural paintings and furniture of archaeological and historical-artistic interest. The most suitable chemical methodologies aimed at the material characterization of cultural heritage will be examined. Students will be able to evaluate the chemical-physical characteristics of different types of cultural heritage, their degradation mechanisms and the materials and methods of intervention; what are the main chemical analytical investigations for the characterization of cultural heritage

Contents:

• Constituent materials of cultural heritage (types and classification)
• Chemical characterization of materials
• Degradation processes
• Diagnostics of the state of conservation
• Materials and methods for restoration

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This course is part of the Master's programm Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage (cod. 8537). The course is held in English language by Associate Professor Silvia Prati.

Overview:

Student will acquire knowledge concerning the non-destructive and micro-destructive methods for the analyses of cultural heritage materials such as pigments, binding media and degradation products on different cultural heritage supports. Students will get acquainted with the most advanced sample preparation techniques used for the preparation of cross sections and be able to define a suitable analytical protocol for the investigation of artistic materials.

Contents:

• Advanced Non-Destructive Techniques
• Stratigraphic Section Preparation Methods
• FTIR Microscopy: Advanced Principles and Set-Up
• RAMAN Microscopy: Advanced Principles and Set-Up

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This course is part of the Master's programm in Chemistry (cod. 9072). The course is held in Italian language by Associate Professor Silvia Prati.

Overview:

Student will obtain knowledge to be able to design a diagnostic intervention concerning cultural heritage of artistic and archaeological interest, identify the most suitable non-destructive and/or micro-destructive analytical technique to characterize the materials of cultural heritage, the causes and products of their degradation, and know what the interdisciplinary applications of the different analytical techniques are in the cultural heritage sector.

Contents:

• Organic and inorganic substances of historical-artistic interest
• Advanced non-destructive techniques
• Stratigraphic section preparation methods
• FTIR Microscopy: advanced principles and set up
• RAMAN Microscopy: advanced principles and set up
• Immunological techniques: advanced principles and set up

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