Conservation of medieval manuscripts on rag paper with rolled sewing

Owner: Regional Archive of Baix Ebre (Tortosa, Tarragona, Spain). Catalonia Government.
Artefact: Two medieval manuscripts on rag paper and limp vellum binding. The sewing thread is made of rolled parchment, sewn with independent knots onto inner parchment stays. One of them onto outer leather tackets as well (see video below, although there is almost no trace of the leather support).
Date: Dated 1356 and 1369.
Damages: Paper and parchment is seriously woodworm eaten. Covers are wrinkled, sewing is partially broken and folios have tide lines and mould stains.
Conservation treatment: Disbinding, dry cleaning. Reporting collation and fragments of papers. Wet cleaning and leaf-casting the folios with paper pulp. The parchment covers were reinforces with toned japanese tissue, The restored bindings sewn back on the textblock, reproducing the original rolled sewing on parchment, with leather tackets.
Conservators: Maria Correa, Se Hee Song, Rita Udina.
Other links: Facebook album and Instagram. Read the POST of this project if you want to see two medieval angels jumping happy as Larry. The discussion whether sometimes the binding is restored, and others reproduced, has these manuscripts as an example in the lecture about conservation of reused bindings (minutes 5:20 – 7:40″, at the end of this post). In the interview with IBookbinding ethical issues of this conservation is discussed (below).

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A post shared by ℝ𝕚𝕥𝕒 𝕌𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕒. ℙ𝕒𝕡𝕖𝕣 & 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕤. (@ritaudina_conservation)

Clients

Owner: Regional Archive of Baix Ebre (Tortosa, Tarragona, Spain). Catalonia Government.
Artefact: Two medieval manuscripts on rag paper and limp vellum binding. The sewing thread is made of rolled parchment, sewn with independent knots onto inner parchment stays. One of them onto outer leather tackets as well (see video below, although there is almost no trace of the leather support).
Date: Dated 1356 and 1369.
Damages: Paper and parchment is seriously woodworm eaten. Covers are wrinkled, sewing is partially broken and folios have tide lines and mould stains.
Conservation treatment: Disbinding, dry cleaning. Reporting collation and fragments of papers. Wet cleaning and leaf-casting the folios with paper pulp. The parchment covers were reinforces with toned japanese tissue, The restored bindings sewn back on the textblock, reproducing the original rolled sewing on parchment, with leather tackets.
Conservators: Maria Correa, Se Hee Song, Rita Udina.
Other links: Facebook album and Instagram. Read the POST of this project if you want to see two medieval angels jumping happy as Larry. The discussion whether sometimes the binding is restored, and others reproduced, has these manuscripts as an example in the lecture about conservation of reused bindings (minutes 5:20 – 7:40″, at the end of this post). In the interview with IBookbinding ethical issues of this conservation is discussed (below).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ℝ𝕚𝕥𝕒 𝕌𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕒. ℙ𝕒𝕡𝕖𝕣 & 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕤. (@ritaudina_conservation)