Material study of a liturgical cope from the 16^thcentury

Abstract

Teotónio of Braganza (1530Braganza ( -1602 was the fifth son of Duke Jaime I of Braganza and his second wife, Joana de Mendonza. The Braganza's were the most important of the Portuguese noble families, which became the 4 th and last dynasty of the kingdom. Teotónio rose to archiepiscopal rank in 1544 and became the 4 th Archbishop of Évora from 1578 until his death. He also held other several ecclesiastical positions, namely Bishop of Fez and royal adviser of King Philip II. D. Teotónio met and kept up correspondence with people as Teresa de Ávila and Bartolomeu dos Mártires and he had in his service artists like the painter Duarte Frisão and the goldsmith João Duarte. He founded in his archdiocese several monasteries, convents and hospitals, including the Monastery of the Carthusian of Scala Coeli (1587) that received his library, consisting of rare printed and manuscript books. Under his governance, the archbishop's palace and the cathedral suffered renovation and restoration works to where he ordered a new set of ecclesiastical vestments and liturgical objects. The liturgical cope (ME 172/1) under study ( Fig. 1), together with a dalmatic, belong nowadays to the Évora Museum and make part of one of those set of ecclesiastical vests. From the same set, a chasuble, with the court of arm of D. Teotónio, is in the Sacred Art Museum and the altar frontal is in Saint Vincent church, belonging to the Town Hall. In order to clarify if these four objects belong to the same set, their material study is a fundamental issue. Thirty eight samples, between 3 and 5 mm from different points representing the different metal thread typologies and coloured silk yarns were collected for the material studies. Optical observation of sampled metal threads and silk yarns was carried out in a Leica M205C microscope. A Hitachi S-3700N variable pressure scanning electron microscope coupled with a Brüker energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer were used for surface and cross-section morphological characterisation and chemical analysis of the metal threads. Acceleration voltages of 5.0 kV (for the fibres) and 15.0 kV (for the metal threads) were used for SEM imaging and 20.0 kV was used for EDS analyses. An LCQ Advantage ThermoFinnigan mass spectrometer equipped with an ESI source, using an ion trap mass analyser and a PDA detector was coupled to an HPLC system and was used for dyed fibres analysis. The Liturgical Cope was made of a variety of materials that included two different typologies of metal threads, dyed silk yarns and vegetable yarns used in the warp/weft. It is in good conservation status, although some damaged areas were found either due to mechanical action or microbiological attack. The two main types of metal threads recorded were silver drawn wire and silver strips or gilded silver strips wound around a yellow silk core. Gilding is more extensive on the external side of the threads. The Ag-based alloy wire composition is ca. 97% silver, 1.5% gold and 1.5% copper (%wt). For the strips, there is no difference in composition be...

Analysis of fabrics and metal threads from two Andalusian liturgical vestments from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: a multitechnical approach

“…The origins of the copes were in the vestments that the monastic community wore when they moved between churches or monasteries [3]. From the ninth century, the existence of copes has been registered in church inventories [4,5]. Afterward, these garments became ennobled [3].…”

“…Afterward, these garments became ennobled [3]. The hood was incorporated to the liturgical vestments (copes and other garments) and by the fifteenth century was substituted by a shield-shaped piece of embroidery fabric, which hung from the shoulder and attached with decorative buttons to the body of the vestment (called capillo) [3][4][5]. In the Baroque era, the wide orphrey running the whole length of the cope was made of a decorated fabric [4,5].…”

“…Natural dyes in yellow, orange, brown and green fibers from Krakow liturgical vestments from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries were also dealt with [10]. Both metallic and colored yarns were studied in a Portuguese cope from the sixteenth century [5] and from Australian copes, chasubles and miters from the nineteenth-twentieth century [3]. Usually, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) were used for determining the composition of metallic pieces [3,5,[8][9][10].…”

“…Both metallic and colored yarns were studied in a Portuguese cope from the sixteenth century [5] and from Australian copes, chasubles and miters from the nineteenth-twentieth century [3]. Usually, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) were used for determining the composition of metallic pieces [3,5,[8][9][10]. The chromatographic techniques are usually used for the identification of textile dyes [5,[10][11][12].…”

“…Usually, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) were used for determining the composition of metallic pieces [3,5,[8][9][10]. The chromatographic techniques are usually used for the identification of textile dyes [5,[10][11][12]. In our study, we have prioritized the use of nondestructive analysis, such as micro-Raman spectroscopy, to analyze the fibrous helping to the discrimination of the dyes applied [13].…”