New tools for the protection of Cultural Heritage in Italy: Innovative Techniques for in-situ Diagnostics

An accurate diagnosis of the cause and extent of the moisture is a fundamental step in the conservation of masonry. Before performing any conservation in treatment the provenance, the amount and distribution of the moisture in the masonry, should be known. In the case of painting layers present in the outer surface, both applied in “a fresco” technique and with the aid of a binder, the knowledge of moisture content is furthermore required because of the intrinsically delicacy of the art work. Nevertheless, the moisture amount and distribution within a wall painting is difficult to determine. The major difficult arises when dealing with the distribution of the moisture in large areas of precious and ancient surfaces, being in this case the drilling of a solid core for a direct moisture measurement. In fact, this steady tests to measure the water content in porous materials are microdestructive and the parameter of water content is not the most significant regarding the decay. Therefore the present research show innovative techniques and procedures for measuring the parameters which are really responsible of the damage due to the water exchange between the surface an the ambient.