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This work aimed at evaluating the possible use of several organic compounds as novel conservation products against the biocolonization of cultural heritage materials. In a first step, the antifungal activity of 10 selected essential oil (EOs) constituents was tested against a strain of Aspergillus niger collected from a Roman mural painting (Pompeii, Italy). According to antifungal assays, thymol, eugenol and cinnamaldehyde provided a strong and enduring inhibition effect. These properties open the way to the possible exploitability of EOs constituents for middle and long-term protection applications. In this perspective, the three compounds were exposed to different light conditions with the purpose of assessing their stability under photo-oxidation conditions. After ageing, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis and in vitro antifungal assays were performed. The collected results proved that light exposure had a critical negative effect on the antifungal capability of cinnamaldehyde samples. On the contrary, composition and properties of eugenol and thymol were not affected by ageing, confirming their possible use in the future development of long-lasting conservation products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roman mural green pigment painting fragments from three Roman sites in the north of the Roman province Germania Superior: Koblenz Stadtwald Remstecken (KOSR), Weißenthurm ' Am guten Mann' (WEIS) and Mendig Lungenkärchen (MELU), dating from second and third centuries AD were analyzed. The experiments were performed nondestructively using synchrotron-based scanning macro-X-ray fluorescence (SR-MA-XRF), synchrotron-based scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence (SR-μ-XRF), synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. Correlation between SR-MA-XRF, SR-μ-XRF elemental map distributions and optical images of scanned areas was mainly found for the elements Ca, Fe and K. With XRF, Fe and K were identified correlated with green pigment, but in samples from two sites, Mendig Lungenkärchen and Weißenthurm ' Am guten Mann', also Cu was detected in minor concentration. The results of SR-XRD and Raman spectroscopy were limited to one sample from Weißenthurm ' Am guten Mann'. In this sample, green earth and calcium carbonate were identified by SR-XRD and, additionally, malachite by Raman spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roman wall fragments dating from 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, from two sites of the Roman province of Germania Superior, near the present day towns of Wössingen (Baden-Württemberg) and Mülheim-Kärlich (Rheinland-Pfalz), were analyzed with synchrotron-based scanning macro-X-ray fluorescence (SR-MA-XRF) at the FLUO beamline (ANKA Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Lead, iron, copper, calcium, potassium, among other elements, were detected and are correlated with red, blue, yellow and green pigments. In the fragments from Mülheim-Kärlich, red has high correlation with Pb (red lead pigment), Fe and Ca were detected in 2 different hues of yellow respectively, and Cu is correlated with the blue pigment. The green pigment investigated in the Wössingen's fragments has high correlation with Fe and K, indicating the use of green earth, and the red pigment is correlated with iron, indicating the use of the red ochre. Synchrotron-based scanning macro-X-ray fluorescence applied in fragments of wall paintings has shown to be a fast, non-destructive and effective technique in the identification and discrimination of the pigments, plaster, different layers and impurities in paintings through the 2D elemental distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here a study of 30 fragments of green wall paintings from Roman times found in the Patio de Banderas excavation in Seville Alcazar. The sample characterisation was realised using optical microscopy, colourimetry, infrared and micro-Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The study of these pigments is important because it can help determine the source or the pictorial technique used. The samples studied in this work have been divided into two groups, according to the composition of their green pigments. In the first group, celadonite has been characterised as the primary component of the green colour; chlorite was also detected. Particles constituted by chromium accompanied by aluminium, iron and zinc were found in all studied samples of this group. Chlorite and chromium oxide could also be responsible for the green colour. The presence of chromium suggested the presence of green colour pigment from Verona. In the second group, a mixture of celadonite and glauconite was detected and could be responsible for the green colour observed. The addition of refracting material such as Egyptian blue was also used. A mixture of Egyptian green and Egyptian blue together with celadonite and glauconite was also found. Four classes of intonaco were recognised and classified based upon the composition of the aggregates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] LIBS, Raman, FTIR and XRD techniques allowed to identify the red pigment as red ochre. [•] The proposed approach provided insights on the used pigments and painting techniques. [•] The red pigment of the plasters has been compared with local Cottanello red marble. [•] The use of local and poor materials in roman rural villa of Sabina has been confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the depiction of the mythological narrative of the Judgment of Paris in Roman wall paintings. The author notes that a recurring feature of these Roman compositions is the depiction of a water channel that physically separates the figure of Paris from the goddesses. It is argued that these water features can be understood as miniature representations of the Hellespont, the body of water that separates Europe from Asia. This motif, according to the author, may refer to the fact that the judgment of Paris indirectly led to the Trojan War, an event that set in motion the permanent state of conflict between East and West.

There is still much to be learned about architectural perspective from the study of Roman wall paintings dating to the first century B.C.E. This article demonstrates that Second Style wall paintings of houses and villas in Rome and Campania hold evidence for different types of perspective: convergence perspective and parallel perspective. A special variation involves multiple systems of convergence perspective. Analyses of these different perspective systems and reconstructions of painters' methodologies demonstrate the sensitivity and adaptability of wall painters to the physical and social parameters of Roman domestic space. The use of different perspective systems reflects the role of painters in crafting the complex form of perspective found in Second Style wall painting. While being adjustable to many variables, the type of perspective found in the Second Style offered viewers impressions of perspectival convergence, a visual function analogous to contemporary applications of perspective in other media, such as architects' drawings and theater scenery painting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Based on recent research on mural paintings from a number of ancient Roman sites, i.e. Ostia, Ephesos, Carnuntum and Saalfelden, the contribution presents the results obtained by microscopic techniques used to study similar paints from different sites as well as paints of different artistic quality, style and date from one and the same site. It is shown that careful microscope investigations are capable of detecting the stratigraphic sequence of plaster layers, the way of preparing and applying the mortars, the raw materials used, and the means to produce the desired surface in terms of colour and texture. The analyses focus on petrographic thin-sections observed in different modes of illumination. Pseudocoloured images produced from characteristic sample micrographs are presented in order to better illustrate the relevant features. The preparatory — arriccio-plaster layers always contain aggregate from local sources, preferentially unwashed river sands with enhanced amounts of silt. For the finish — intonaco-plaster layers, the aggregate was produced by crushing selected stone material of light colour; when available or appropriate, marble was employed, but other stones can be found as well. For high quality paints, a number of intonaco layers were applied always using the same raw materials at reduced grain sizes and eventually admixing pigments. While this was the usual way to produce a smooth surface, a few examples were found which indicate grinding of the hardened intonaco prior to painting. The microscopic aspect of the paint layers clearly point to the application of a lime-pigment colour onto a dry or semi-dry surface, i.e. no true fresco technique was used. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article examines the cultural and artistic context of one of the most famous Roman frescoes, the Odyssey Landscapes. It argues that the painting's fictive portico frame would have evoked in the Roman viewer the experience of the ambulatio, the act of walking for leisure and contemplation that came to be an essential element of a properly Hellenized otium. The painted portico thus puts the viewers in the proper frame of mind to appreciate the intellectual associations of the painting as they walk with Odysseus on a parallel journey of philosophical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]