Formed during the first half
of the XVIII century, the Vatican Collection of Etruscan
Vases was and continues to be one of the most interesting
for scholars and archaeologists to study. It was this
wide spread interest in the budding science of archaeology
that in 1734, a painter named Bartolomeo Poli set
about drawing all the Etruscan vases found in the
Vatican collection.
Soon after Poli finished his work,
Anton Francesco Gori and Giovanni Passeri wanted to
use these pictures in their first illustrated edition
of Etruscan vase painting which set out to document
the development of this art form. Later on, in1787,
Vincenzo Monaldini printed and published “Series
of 300 etched drawings representing Estruscan Vases”,
one of the first illustrated editions of ancient objects.
Thus the volumes that you have helped
us restore are the first and most historically valuable
volumes on the theme. The famous German scholar Winckelmann
attests that “the first collection ever done
of illustrated Etruscan Vases is the one of the Vatican
Library”
This rare volume is a monumental
work because all its pages are illustrated individually.
The volume won Passeri great fame and thus the grand
Duke of Tuscany granted him the official recognition
and interesting although somewhat plane honorary title
of official “antique collector”.
The very first step of this restoration consisted
in an overall cleaning of the volumes, both cover
and pages. All three volumes had a damaged spine which
was completely repaired using the art of 18th century
binding procedures. The paper of the covers was changed
using a handmade decorated paper from an artisan in
Bologna who worked exclusively for this book and faithfully
imitated the original cover. The interior pages, which
were deteriorated are now cleaned and reinforced with
Japanese paper. The incisions of Etruscan vases which
were damaged by oxidation, were treated with special
techniques to clean the oxidated portions (de-acidification).
All the edges were reinforced and all the pages perfectly
fixed.
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VATICAN
MUSEUMS' LIBRARY
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