Disclosing the composition of unknown historical drug formulations: an emblematic case from the Spezieria of St. Maria della Scala in Rome

New insights into the composition of historical remedies and pharmaceutical formulations: the identification of natural resins and balsams by gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric investigations

“…Small amounts of sample (up to 0.35 mg) were transesterified by a one-step process using 30 μL of m-(trifluoromethyl)phenyltrimethylammonium hydroxide, 2.5% in methanol, and then 1 μL of the derivatised sample was injected in the chromatographic column's head using helium as the carrier gas (flow rate 1.2 mL/min, 99.99% purity). This method was already successfully tested by authors already on archaeological pitch (Izzo et al 2013), fatty acids from historical and modern drying and non-drying oils (Fuster-López et al 2016;Izzo et al 2014a, b;Fuster-López et al 2019;Caravá et al 2020), natural waxes and terpenic resinaceous materials from artistic and archaeological contexts (Izzo et al 2013(Izzo et al , 2017Rigon et al 2020), an unknown historical drug formulation from this Spezieria (Lodi et al 2020).…”

“…A first attempt to disclose the composition of un unknown drug formulation from the Spezieria was recently published by Lodi et al (2020), but further investigations were required in the study of the origin and use of the medicines that have remained inside the containers in the Spezieria for centuries.…”

3D Model Acquisition and Image Processing for the Virtual Musealization of the Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala, Rome

“…These objectives were (1) to address the physicochemical characterization of the hundreds of drugs contained in the oldest containers at Santa Maria della Scala (which date from the late 17th century and early 18th century); (2) to conduct a historical and cultural study of the substances and recipes identified; (3) to study the geographical and temporal origin of these characterized medicinal treatments and explore their transmission and evolution through time; and (4) to complete the inventory and cataloguing of the personal property owned by this Roman spezieria. The results of the numerous research projects conducted at the spezieria over the last seven years (2016-2022) by the Department of Art History of the Universitat de València confirm that the Roman spezieria of Santa Maria della Scala is an ancient and historical mosaic of pharmaceutical knowledge [1][2][3][4][5][6]. These results have been possible thanks to the support provided by various national and international funding sources and to the scientific collaboration of universities, research centers and laboratories in Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Switzerland, all of which responded in a coordinated manner to the objectives outlined in the first phase of the project (2016-2019).…”

“…This protocol consisted of a combination of microscopic techniques (Optical Microscopy/LM; Scanning Electron Microscopy-X-ray Microanalysis/SEM-EDX), diffractometry (X-ray Diffraction/XRD), spectroscopic techniques (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy/FT-IT; Raman Spectroscopy; and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance/NMR) and chromatographic techniques, isolated or in tandem (Gas Chromatography-Spectrometry of Mass/GC-MS, Pyrolysis-GC-MS, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography/HPLC). Finally, and always with the aim of improving the detection of organic compounds [4,6], work was conducted with Diffuse Reflectance (DR) and in-phase magnetic micro-extraction online "solid in tube" (Magnetic-IT-SPME) combined with capillary liquid chromatography-diode array detection (CapLC-DAD). The results obtained were analyzed from a historical and cultural perspective between 2019 and 2021 (Objectives 2,3).…”