Tutorial - Vittoria Guglielmi

TUTORIAL - MAY 29, 2023

Vittoria Guglielmi

Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

The effects of time and environmental conditions are well known to be an issue with respect to works of art and historic buildings. Indeed, the scientific research community has performed many studies in order to find solutions to slow down and solve the unavoidable deterioration of the materials. However, the upward trend of pollutants in the atmosphere has been observed to be observed to be an ever-growing threat to both indoor and outdoor artworks. In addition, several studies have shown that indoor pollution also comes from objects and various materials commonly present in indoor environments, whether they be, for example, museums, private collections, or churches. In this context both some environmental monitoring campaigns’ results and the analytical characterisation of products of degradation of different artistic materials, especially by means of non-invasive measurements and portable instruments, will be considered through several case studies. Moreover, the ongoing research that has been devoted to an extensive and systematic study of pigments, binders and statuary marble and their interaction with atmospheric pollutants and particulate matter will be presented. This research seems to be of critical importance when one considers the importance, both educational and economic, of striving to preserve objects of cultural heritage significance which informs communities of science and conservators about degradation issues and the steps toward their remediation.

Vittoria Guglielmi is an Associate Professor of Analytical Chemistry, SSD CHIM 12 – Chemistry for the environment and for cultural heritage - at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Milan. She obtained her Master's Degree in Chemistry from the University of Milan and her PhD in Chemical Sciences from the same University. The research activity of Vittoria Guglielmi has been devoted to the development and implementation of analytical methods via instrumentation, mainly employing spectroscopic techniques, for the investigation of both inorganic and organic materials in the field of cultural heritage. Because of the peculiar characteristics of unicity and preciousness of cultural heritage objects, the focus of the research has always been the micro-destructiveness/non-destructiveness - as well as the portability of the techniques. Vibrational micro-spectroscopies were therefore preferred - especially Raman spectroscopy - whose excellent results in the laboratory led to the development and application of portable instrumentation. The scientific activity of Vittoria Guglielmi has been reported in over than 80 scientific publications (papers, book chapters and conferences’ proceedings), and about 50 contributions at national and international conferences. She gives lessons for several Bachelors’ and Masters’ degrees courses at the University of Milan and the Scuola di Restauro di Botticino (Milan).