Abstract
The research aims to investigate the nature of the materials used in the decoration of the cover of a sunk-panel Commissione Dogale, a Venetian manuscript of 1582. The analysed volume Ms. It. VII, 1869 (= 8134) belongs to the collections of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. The Commissioni were intended as official documents written on parchment and issued by the Doge of Venice. Their bindings were very rich in decoration, especially those produced in the late 16th century. This manuscript is a sumptuous example of the Venetian Renaissance artisanship influenced by Middle Eastern style: its cover was made of gilded leather, painted with arabesque branches and buds and lastly lacquered. The scientific examination of the lavishly illuminated cover was performed before the book-binding conservation treatment, as the characterisation of the decoration materials allowed to plan an appropriate conservation project. The research first step has been the non-invasive observation of the cover surface by digital microscope through UV–VIS radiations. Then, the study of the composition of these materials has been carried out with ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, XRF spectroscopy and spot-test analyses on samples. Pigments like minium, green earth, a lead-based yellow and smalt have been detected in the painted layer, while a precise identification of the resins and varnishes layered on top of the decoration was not possible because of the heterogeneity of samples. Furthermore, the materials used for this cover can be usefully compared with those detected by other recent analyses carried out on a variety of 16th century Venetian book illuminations.
Highlights
The so called sunk-panel style could be considered as the most lavish typology of book-binding developed in Venice during the Renaissance
Its flourishing is mainly related to the 16th century production of Commissioni Dogali: these were official documents issued by the Venetian Republic Chancellery and by the Doge of Venice from the 13th until the 18th century
Commissions with the precious sunk-panel binding began to appear in Venice in the middle of the 16th century and their production was concentrated in its last third, with some examples at the beginning of the 17th century too [5, 6]
Summary
Venetian artisans used a wide variety of fine materials and embellishments in order to transform the Commission volume in the symbol of its recipient’s social status: the cover materials and decoration techniques could vary from simple parchment and gold tooled leather to silk velvet, brocade and, lastly, silver plates during the 18th century These typologies of bindings were presented in 1999 and in 2000 by two articles describing some. Commissions with the precious sunk-panel binding began to appear in Venice in the middle of the 16th century and their production was concentrated in its last third, with some examples at the beginning of the 17th century too [5, 6] These volumes were different from contemporary leather bindings in cover structure and decoration because they were strictly relying on Islamic artisanship. Due to their mixed Western structure and Oriental decoration, the Venetian sunk-panel bindings have been fruitfully compared with other luxurious coeval artworks by history of art scholars, especially in several 1990s and 2000s publications [7,8,9,10,11]
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