Multispectral imaging on manuscripts. Case studies from Petrarca to Carlo Levi

Abstract

The contribution presents the first significant results of the application to some important case studies - from Petrarca's Bucolicum Carmen (Fazion, Ventura), to some papers of Giuseppe Raimondi's Fund (Obbiso, Rossi), to Carlo Levi's Quaderno a cancelli (Gasperina) - of different types of multispectral analysis, with innovative tools such as the Forinst-MSM microscope, acquired by the Department of Classical Philology and Italianistics thanks to the Department of Excellence project 2017-2022. The microscope, which was used both on site and at the places where the analyzed manuscript documents were preserved, not only magnifies the detail, allowing the analysis of the stratigraphy of the writings and the identification of the various correction campaigns, but also, thanks to a filter wheel, can select the different wavelengths refracted by the light on the analyzed pigment, and thus use the most suitable visual band for deciphering the writings. This extremely useful tool was presented at the 2019 and 2020 Researchers' Night, to great interest.

Keywords

• philology
• authorial philology
• palaeography
• authorship
• stratigraphy of corrections
• boccaccio
• giuseppe raimondi
• carlo levi