Badea, Elena; Sommer, Dorte V. Poulsen; Axelsson, Kathleen Mühlen; Larsen, René; Kurysheva, Alexandra; Miu, Lucretia; Della Gatta, Giuseppe; “Damage ranking in historic parchments: from microscopic study to collagen denaturation assessment by micro DSC”, e-Preservation Science 9 (2012) 97–109
Abstract:
The microscopic assessment of collagen fibres structure and measurement of their shrinkage activity were used to provide a quantification of the deterioration at microscopic level for two groups of historic parchments from the Royal Library of Copenhagen and the State Archives of Florence. The micro differential scanning calorimetry (micro DSC) was used to quantitatively assess the deterioration at mesoscopic level through the analysis of fibrillar collagen thermal denaturation. The results enabled us to classify the historic parchments in four categories, i.e. not damaged, displaying minor, medium and major damage. The measurement protocols, deterioration parameters and criteria for assigning a parchment to one of the four categories are reported. Such a comprehensive deterioration profiling can support improved preventive care and conservation treatment of collections.