Hidden library: visualizing fragments of medieval manuscripts in early-modern bookbindings with mobile macro-XRF scanner

Abstract

This experiment demonstrates the large potential of macro-XRF imaging for the visualization of fragments of medieval manuscripts hidden in early-modern bookbindings. The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century made manuscripts obsolete and bookbinders started recycling their strong parchment leaves to reinforce bindings of printed books. One in roughly every five early-modern books contains a fragment of a medieval manuscript hidden underneath the bookbinding. Systematically investigating these fragments will provide scholars with valuable information about transmission and variant readings of medieval texts. Four case studies were scanned with a Bruker M6 Jetstream mobile XRF scanner. We were able to visualize hidden texts underneath black paint, paper and parchment at such a high resolution that they could be read and dated. One of the findings was an early twelfth-century excerpt of a text by the Venerable Bede in a sixteenth-century bookbinding. In addition, we were able to separately visualize the lower and upper text of a famous palimpsest. The main limitation of the current set-up is the scanning time, which took anywhere between 6 and 66 h. In order to systematically employ macro-XRF for researching medieval fragments, the scanning time needs to be decreased. Nonetheless, this experiment shows that the macro-XRF technique is extremely suitable for visualizing fragments of medieval manuscripts in a non-destructive way in order to read, date and localize them.

More than XRF Mapping: STEAM (Statistically Tailored Elemental Angle Mapper) a Pioneering Analysis Protocol for Pigment Studies

“…Furthermore, detectors with a larger detection area (or more than one detector in combination) highly increase the detected signal, speeding the measurement time up. Moreover, the size and the portability of these system allows to analyze samples with different dimensions, from manuscripts to large paintings [32][33][34][35][36], not only in museums or archives but also in archaeological sites [37], extending in this way the advantages of this kind of analysis to all the possible objects of the CH world. Besides, the higher spatial resolution has opened new possibilities for this technique, which allows not only to analyze the composition of the artist palette, or the presence of underdrawings, but that is also capable of recovering degraded and illegible daguerreotypes [38].…”

Mid-wave Infrared Reflectography and Thermography for the Study of Ancient Books: A Review

“…The same kind of features have been investigated by Duivenvoorden et al (2017) by using the mobile macro-X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanner to map fragments hidden in early-modern book-bindings. By means of locally resolved elemental analysis, macro-XRF yields maps of the elemental distribution ( Figure 5(b-d)) and reveal the written fragment beneath endpapers ( Figure 5(a)) (Duivenvoorden et al 2017). Nevertheless, the application of this technique is strongly limited to fragments written with iron-based inks, excluding all the carbon-based ones which cannot be detected by XRF.…”

Micro-XRF study of the troodontid dinosaurJianianhualong tengireveals new biological and taphonomical signals

“…The mobility of the instrument allows to bring the instrument to the object and to measure the samples directly on-site, reducing risk of a transport damage of valuable samples. This provides ideal conditions for an in-situ micro-XRF measurement for high performance element distribution analysis of large samples with high spatial resolution in the 100 µm range [25][26][27].…”