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A closer look at the Azzolino collection
Anna Lagerqvist Alidoost1, Marei Hacke2, Thea Winther1
1Swedish National Archives, Preservation and Conservation, Stockholm, Sweden.
Plos One
|April 12, 2023
Summary
Iron gall ink corrosion in historical documents was analyzed. Ink composition, while not predicting deterioration, helped attribute authorship and understand historical context, revealing unique elements in Queen Christina
Area of Science:
- Document preservation
- Art and historical artifact analysis
- Material science
Background:
- The Azzolino collection at the Swedish National Archives contains historically significant documents.
- Varied levels of iron gall ink corrosion are observed within this collection.
- Understanding ink composition is crucial for preservation and historical context.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between iron gall ink composition, author, geography, and corrosion levels.
- To determine if elemental analysis can predict ink deterioration for treatment decisions.
- To explore the potential of ink analysis for historical attribution and contextualization.
Main Methods:
- Initial visual condition survey of documents.
- Characterization of iron gall inks using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry.
- XRF-mapping to analyze elemental distribution within inks.
Main Results:
- Inks in the Azzolino collection are relatively pure, with high iron and low levels of other elements.
- Elemental analysis of single documents is not a reliable predictor of ink deterioration in this context.
- XRF-mapping indicated potential for distinguishing authors by ink composition, aiding attribution.
Conclusions:
- Ink composition analysis provides valuable insights into authorship and historical context, rather than solely predicting preservation needs.
- Queen Christina's inks showed a tendency for higher copper content, and some inks contained calcium, warranting further investigation.
- Elemental analysis is more useful for historical contextualization than for predicting the deterioration of individual documents in this specific collection.