Research / Field Projects
Archival Conservation & Restoration
The work done by students in the paper restoration workshop involves material from the historic archives of the cities of San Gemini, Collescipoli, the Diocese Narni and of Terni. Besides educating students on the methods of paper restoration, part of the goal of the course is to help restore and preserve historic documents in these archives.
Most of the material we work on from these archives is manuscripts in single sheets, or small pamphlets. Work of this type matches the time-frame and scope of work that can be done in our month long workshop. This work is very useful to the archives because it often is difficult to fund and organize intervention on small quantities of loose-leaf documents. All restoration work is done by the students and faculty of the program and is authorized and supervised by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archivistici del Umbria.
The material from the San Gemini Historic Archives consisted of single-sheet manuscripts, correspondence accounting and miscellaneous city records, from the 14th to the 18th centuries. The material from the Narni Diocese Historic Archive are manuscript report from various parishes and church institutions, including pastoral visits done by the bishop to parishes, inventories of church properties, accounting records and miscellaneous inspections reports. The documents are usually librettos of several sheets stitched together. They often have serious damage from water, insects, mice and acidic inks. In our program, the material was disassembled (taking great care not to lose any additional material), cleaned and treated.
Treatment usually involves various forms of cleaning (usually dry), de-acidification, lining weak papers with tissue to consolidate them, patching missing portions of paper and reassembly with new string and making acid free folders to hold each document. In letters, the tears caused by the breaking of the seals are not repaired because the damage was the result of the intended use of the document.
