Considerations about decision making on the conservation of an 18th century illuminated manuscript

ABSTRACT

In 2018, a project aimed to think the association between conservation and history conserved an illuminated manuscript codex entitled Commitment of the brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament of the Parish of Our Lady of the Pillar of Congonhas from the year of 1725. All interventions were thought based on a perspective that sought to balance two apparently opposite forces: maintaining the material aspects of the passage of time and implementing the necessary interventions for ensuring the object’s functional, symbolic, and aesthetic aspects for as long as possible. To unravel the path that led to specific choices in detriment to others, this work discusses the decisions made regarding the conservation of the book leaves, such as filling missing material and removing stains, thus exposing how the conservation process, as well as any other type of intervention, is connected to a series of values that say a lot about the person who acts upon the object.

KEYWORDS:
Illuminated manuscript; Graphic documents; Conservation; Values; Toning; Filling of losses