engleski

Materials Characterization of Beram Mural Paintings

The church of St. Mary at Škrilinah in Beram is decorated with the most fa- mous mural paintings in Istria, late Gothic frescoes, painted by the master Vincent of Kastav. Like any cultural property besides its immaterial compo- nents, whose value is priceless, it is composed of material, tangible, more or less durable, without which the intangible value cannot be in fact preserved. Frescoes are made of lime, sand, crushed stone and the most precious – pig- ments. In the focus of the present study was the chemical characterization of pigments and plasters composing the frescoes, of materials added subse- quently during past restorations and of alterations of the original materials caused by the presence of salts or microorganisms. Moreover, sampling of moulds present in the church and their identification was carried out as part of this research. All the samples taken were studied in detail ; first of all by op- tical microscope in order to determine the structure, morphology, colour and function and to define further analytical methods and techniques to apply. The chemical composition of most of the pigments was determined by energy dispersive spectroscopy using a scanning electron microscope (SEM/EDS). Due to their presumed organic origin, some samples were analysed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Both analytical techniques require very small amount of samples, a few milligrams, and the results obtained have been correlated with data found in literature sources and mutually compared in order to confirm the results. According to past researches conducted on Beram frescoes, on the one hand some new outcomes have been achieved and the presence of pigments and materials not discovered so far have been con- firmed, on the other the reliability of some past assumptions has been verified.

materials characterization ; microorganisms ; St. Mary at Škrilinah,

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