Effects of the Ionizing Radiation Disinfection Treatment on Historical Leather

Monia Vadrucci,Cristina Cicero,Fulvio Mercuri,Claudia Mazzuca,Fabio Borgognoni,Daniela Uccelletti,Emily Schifano,Giovanni De Bellis

doi:10.3389/fmats.2020.00021

Abstract

Microorganisms often cause significant damage on historical objects. The archive or library materials 24 as well as textile or leather artifacts suffer serious attacks that need appropriate care treatments. 25 Several biocide processes have been implemented but often their application does not preserve the 26 material of the good. The objective of this work is the disinfection through ionizing radiation of 27 leather wallpaper from the museum building Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia (Rome, Italy). The controlled 28 sterilization treatments were carried out using X-ray beams to eliminate the microorganisms present 29 on the leather and maintaining unchanged the properties of the constituent material. Some fragments 30 of decorated leather wallpaper, dating back to the 1700s, were irradiated with X-rays up to 5000 Gy. 31 The amount of microorganisms was evaluated by microbiological analysis before and after X-ray 32 irradiation treatments to identify the dose that inhibits the bacterial load. It will be shown how the 33 results obtained by the application of different chemical-physical techniques (Scanning Electron 34 Microscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy and Light Transmission Analysis) have helped 35 in the evaluation of the impact of the X-rays on leather chemical and physical integrity.

Highlights

The Palazzo Chigi of Ariccia (Rome) is an ancient residence of princes having the rooms enriched and decorated with precious seventeenth-century leather products: worked and printed leather with decorative motifs used in the form of panels for furnishing
The data collected on the leather substrates subjected to increasing X-ray doses of the sterilization treatment are shown through the analysis carried out with the techniques presented in the previous paragraph
Different bacterial colonies were isolated from leather wallpaper of Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia and identified at the molecular level by the amplification of 16S rDNA

Summary

Introduction

The Palazzo Chigi of Ariccia (Rome) is an ancient residence of princes having the rooms enriched and decorated with precious seventeenth-century leather products: worked and printed leather with decorative motifs used in the form of panels for furnishing. The wallpapers in impressed leather are commonly called “cordovani,” from the manufacturing arts imported to Cordoba, Spain, from the east. These wallpapers still cover the walls of many rooms of the building and are a unique case in this genre (Petrucci, 2014). The realization of leather wallpapers dates back to ancient times and had a slow decline during the eighteenth century (replaced by fabrics and printed papers): at the end of the century it seems that laboratories were active only in Barcelona, Mechelen, Venice, and Amsterdam (Contadini, 1989).

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