RESTORING BEAUTY

(Chemistry to support restoration/ MOLAB: the 118 of our heritage).

From March 17 to 20, the Molab (mobile laboratory) from Perugia will arrive in Naples to carry out a physical-chemical analysis of the Alexander Mosaic kept in the Archaeological Museum. The restoration will be carried out based on the results of those analyses.

Restoration is a complex operation that must be carried out with respect for the very precious material to which it is necessary to give its ancient splendor without betraying its essence.

How can you reconstruct a mosaic or a fresco without knowing the materials that were originally used to make it? Today, thanks to the progress of chemistry and the advent of new technologies, it is possible to identify the exact mixture, the composition of elements. This is how CNR researchers support art historians and restorers.

The Molab- Castanza Miliani (cnr researcher) – Archaeological Museum (mosaic by Alessandro)
Established in 2000 on the initiative of Costanza Miliani and Bruno Brunetti, researchers at the CNR in Perugia, the Molab is a Mobile Emergency Laboratory that carries out non-invasive chemical investigations on works of art in order to evaluate their state of conservation or, possibly, degradation. The Molab is therefore a practical solution to the impossibility of physically transferring some works of art: like a 118 car, in fact, the Molab goes directly to the site to analyze the work in question, bringing with it equipment made up of both prototypes and commercial instruments.
Pasquale Musella (restorer)- Luigia Melillo (archaeologist), Naples.
Specifically, we will follow the analysis that Molab will carry out on the tiles of the Alexander mosaic, an authentic masterpiece of mosaic art preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Naples, an operation that is functional to knowing the state of the materials and therefore a harbinger of useful indications for the purposes of restoration. The archaeologist Luigia Melillo and the restorer Pasquale Musella will tell us about the most delicate steps of their work and will explain why an operation like this one carried out by Molab is of fundamental importance for the restoration of a work.