Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

Integrating Analytical Tools in Treatment Decision-making for a
1513 Hand-colored Ptolemy Geographia Atlas
Lynn Brostoff | Sylvia R. Albro | John Bertonaschi
Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA
Fig. 1
Introduction
In 2009, conservators from the Library of Congress
(LC) undertook the technical examination
of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia, an atlas
printed by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg in
1513 and now part of the Lessing J. Rosenwald
Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections
Division. Bound in stiff-board vellum, the
Atlas contains the text and mathematical coordinates
from Ptolemy’s second century A.C.E.
work on world geography, a sixteenth century
supplemental text, and forty-seven hand colored
woodblock and letterpress printed maps. All but
one of the maps in the Atlas are hand-colored in
six hues, including a problematic green used for
mountain features throughout the maps. The
final map in the volume illustrates the territory
of the book’s patron, the Duke of Lorraine, and
is an early example of multiple color woodblock
printing.
The Rosenwald 1513 Ptolemy Atlas has been
unavailable for study or display for some time
due to its fragile condition. Initial examination
of the Atlas by LC paper and book conservators
confirmed that the vellum binding was extremely
tight, preventing the book from opening completely
and contributing to breaks in the gutter
of the pages. In addition, conservators noted that
approximately forty of the maps appear in relatively
good condition, while seven of the maps
(Fig. 1), are in extremely poor condition, with
all colors dull or darkened, the green pigment
sometimes powdery, and the paper generally
soft and discolored. The green on these maps has
sunk to the back of the support and caused offset
onto the opposite pages.
In order to best approach the complex preservation
of this important volume, a research team
composed of conservators, scientists, and curators
joined forces, resulting in an investigation
into how the Atlas was produced, how it developed
its current condition issues, and how to formulate
a treatment strategy. Many of the specific
research questions posed by the group have been
systematically answered over the past two years
through scholarly research and technical analysis,
leading to informed conservation treatment
planning and decision-making. The initial discoveries
of the research team have been detailed
elsewhere [1, 2, 3, 4], but are summarized here.
History records that the production of the
1513 Ptolemy Atlas began in the early 16th century
in St. Dié, France, where a small group of
humanist scholars known as the Gymnasium
Vosagense, including Matthias Ringmann, Martin
Waldseemüller, and their patron the Duke of
Lorraine, combined efforts to produce a volume
with newly corrected Ptolemy information, along
with updated maps based on European discoveries
of the late 1400’s. This project appears to have
been interrupted by the untimely deaths of the
Duke and Ringmann and the volume was left
unfinished until 1513, when it was published in
Strasbourg by another consortium that included
Waldseemüller.
Examination reveals that the Atlas is constructed
from three different types of laid
papers: twenty maps contain a slightly variant
Crown watermark; four maps and seventeen text
papers have a Lily watermark; and the remaining
papers contain no watermark. Throughout the
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
29