Restoring process and characterisation of ancient damaged parchments

Parchment use a writing material is known from antiquity. Nevertheless the lack of knowledge about its structure makes difficult the identification of parchment measurable intrinsic properties sufficient for its characterisation and suitable for validating a possible conservative restoration. A restoring process developed by Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with Laboratorio di Restauro del libro antico del Monastero delle Benedettine di Viboldone (MI), to give back elasticity, size and shape to naturally aged and to fire-damaged parchment manuscripts is described in this paper. To quantitatively characterise the effects of this treatment, examination techniques at a multiscale-level are also reported. These techniques allow to investigate morphological, mechanical, structural and physico-chemical properties of damaged and undamaged ancient parchments before and after the restorative treatment.