Conservation and Restoration of the Manuscript Book from Schiefling am Wörthersee

Abstract

The manuscript from Schiefling am Wörthersee originates from the early 19th century and contains the transformation of the German translation of <i>Mistical City of God,</i> a narrative written by Spanish nun María de Jesús de Agreda (1602–1665) about the lives of Jesus and Mary. It is written in the local dialect typical of the Schiefling am Wörthersee parish, and that is why it constitutes an important part of the written cultural heritage, especially for Slovenians in Austrian Carinthia. Because the manuscript book was damaged, it was not available to users in the Klagenfurt Diocesan Archives, where it is stored. At the custodian’s proposal, the Restoration and Conservation Centre of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia performed all the necessary conservation and restoration work in order to make the manuscript book usable again and preserve it for our descendants. The text block, which is 302 mm high, 196 mm wide and about 50 mm thick, has 128 leaves folded in ten quires, and the contents are written in iron-gall ink. The text block was merely inserted into the leather cover, without any visible traces of the structural elements that usually bind the text block with the cover. Based on the size of the cover, which differed from the size of the text block, the cover must have originally belonged to another book. Based on a precise inspection of the condition of the manuscript, we carried out the following conservation-restoration treatments: unbinding of the text block, dry cleaning of surfaces, measurement of the paper's pH, fibre identification, ink identification, text block leaf restoration, text block sewing, binding reconstruction and rearrangement of the existing cover to fit the given text block. To protect it permanently, we also made a custom-made protective box for the manuscript book. The conservation-restoration treatments performed are the result of the knowledge and experience of decades of team work of conservers-restorers of the Restoration and Conservation Centre of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia and professional developments in this field.