The Liturgical Cope of D. Teotónio of Braganza: Material Characterization of a 16th CenturyPluviale

Abstract

A 16th century liturgical cope belonging to D. Teotónio of Braganza (collection of the Museum of Évora, ME 172/1) was selected for a material study. The cope is made of a variety of materials that include two different types of metal threads, dyed silk yarns, and vegetable yarns used in the weft. Several samples from different points representing the different metal thread types and colored silk yarns were collected. Stereomicroscopy (optical microscopy) and scanning electron microscopy were used for morphological analysis of the textile fibers and evaluation of metal thread degradation products. Evaluation of mordants and metal thread composition was carried out by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Liquid chromatography with diode array and mass spectrometry detection was used for dye identification, which allowed the determination of three different red dye sources and one yellow dye source in the colored silk yarns. Although different fabrics were used in the manufacturing of the cope, similarities identified in the characterization of the materials suggest that a single workshop was involved in its making.

Unveiling the Complexity of Japanese Metallic Threads

“…However, the majority of the studies concentrates on European production from the 13th to 17th century. Flemish Renaissance tapestries [6], Italian gentry' mantles [7], Hungarian [7] and Portuguese [8] liturgical vestments, and Greek/Byzantine ecclesiastical textiles [9] date back to this period. Successively, the use of metallic threads did not decrease, and we can find it in Croatian liturgical vestments and festive folk costumes from the 17th to 20th century [10], Spanish coaches and furniture textiles from the 18th to 19th century [11], Turkish caftans and brocades dating between the 16th and 19th century [12], ornamentation for ecclesiastic clothing, religious statues, and church decoration from the Colonial Andes, which dates back to 17th and 19th century [13].…”

“…Even if some innovative approaches have to be mentioned [3][4][5]7,[24][25][26], the majority of works relies on routinely and welltested techniques. First of all, optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are fundamental for a preliminary analysis of the sample dimension, morphology, and surface [1,[5][6][7][8][9]13,14,27,28]. For example, degradation and corrosion of layers can be appreciated [12,13,29], as well as information about the manufacturing techniques [1,7,13,27,29,30].…”

“…For example, degradation and corrosion of layers can be appreciated [12,13,29], as well as information about the manufacturing techniques [1,7,13,27,29,30]. Successively, X-rays techniques such as XPS [26,29], XRF [10,13,31], and EDX [5][6][7][8][9][10]13,14,24,27,28,31,32] are the most common ways to have a characterization of the metallic part, the last permitting also to obtain elemental maps, which are useful to appreciate dislocation of degradation products [8,11]. Also, X-ray diffraction (XRD) is seldom used to characterize materials adhering to the metal strips [31] or degradation products on the surface [11,13].…”

“…It consists in performing measurements at different voltages to detect the composition at different depths [12,27]. The preparation of a polished crosssection for this kind of sample is a diffused practice, anyway [8,9,13,14,32]. Other ways to conduct a line profile analysis are using a dedicated XRD instrument [3] or preparing polished cross-sections by focused ion beam milling, which were successively analyzed with traditional techniques [7].…”

Chemical Characterization of Pope Pius VII Ancient Ecclesiastical Vestment by a Multi-Analytical Approach

“…Several articles describe the characterization of ancient liturgical textiles, their manufacturing process and dyeing techniques [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. These studies are mainly devoted to the characterization of the materials and are generally performed by micro-invasive analytical techniques [8][9][10]14].…”