Jarno Bontadi

Italian National Research Council | CNR · Institute of Tree and Timber IVALSA

The bronze doors of the Basilica of San Zeno in Verona, Italy, are a special case in art history research. They were made by several workshops during the twelfth century: stylistically, two to three workshops were assumed to produce the metal parts of the door. However, it is still unclear when exactly and if this interpretation can be supported by...

The panel painting depicting the Virgin Enthroned with Child underwent dendrochronological, multi-spectral, and stylistic/documental analyses. Dendrochronology facilitated the determination of the terminus post quem , which was 1492. Robust correlations with the Baltic1 reference chronology and its recent update, 2021BLT1, indicated a likely origin...

Two 11th- and 12th-century entrance doors from the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, made of different copper alloys and woods, were non-invasively examined in situ. The chemical composition of the metals, the way in which different metal parts were joined together, the tree species used to construct the supporting structures and the age of the wood...

The Migazzi palace in Cogolo (Val di Pejo, Trentino, Italy), an important alpine noble residence of medieval origin, was analysed through dendrochronology. The floor and ceiling beams, cladding boards, door lintels, loose timber, and anything that could be dendrochronologically dated were examined. For each room, at least one sample containing the...

This paper presents the dendrochronological study of some wood samples from two historical dry-stone structures located in Val Poré and Val Molinac (Val di Sole, Trento, Italy), at an elevation of about 2300 m. The study was undertaken in the context of the ALPES research project and developed from the results of the undergraduate work of Maria Chi...

Linked to major volcanic eruptions around 536 and 540 CE, the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age has been described as the coldest period of the past two millennia. The exact timing and spatial extent of this exceptional cold phase are, however, still under debate because of the limited resolution and geographical distribution of the availabl...

Three tree ring sequences were collected on the soundboard of the Stradivari harp. Due to the presence of the strings in the centre of the harp soundboard, the sampling of the tree ring widths was focused separately on the right side (RX), the central (CX) and the left side (LX).

Three tree ring sequences were collected on the soundboard of the Stradivari harp. Due to the presence of the strings in the centre of the harp soundboard, the sampling of the tree ring widths was focused separately on the right side (RX), the central (CX) and the left side (LX). Tree ring measurements were carried out by using the Video Time Table...

The Museo Storico Musicale of the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory of Music in Naples owns a collection of over two hundred musical instruments of considerable historical importance. Within the collection, 30 bowed and plucked instruments representative of the Neapolitan violin‐making tradition were analysed dendrochronologically to date them, est...

Stradivari’s apprenticeship is still not completely understood today. Tradition has it that he was a pupil of Nicola Amati, the great violin maker who preceded him in musical instruments production in the city of Cremona. However, no documents proving Stradivari’s presence in Nicola Amati's workshop can be found. In this paper, we present a dendroc...

This work describes the experimental evidence of the deformation induced on a XVI century panel painting by climate uncontrolled fluctuations and on structural replicas under controlled laboratory conditions. The objects under measurement have a very thin wooden support (6 mm), caused by thinning and cradling of the original artefact during a resto...

The species, determined per each element, were identified through both macroscopic evaluation and microscopic analysis. Many samples of the roof were dated through dendrochronology, which allowed even a reconstruction of the origin of the timber.

An important question for our understanding of Roman history is how the Empire’s economy was structured, and how long-distance trading within and between its provinces was organised and achieved. Moreover, it is still unclear whether large construction timbers, for use in Italy, came from the widespread temperate forests north of the Alps and were...

The Romans founded their Empire on a most efficient network of transport and the extensive exploitation of resources from the regions under their administration. Evidently, large quantities of timber also travelled along these roads, as wood was an essential everyday resource, required for anything from building to heating, and from shipbuilding to...

Traditionally wood was the most accessible building material in the vernacular environment because the access to trees was convenient and immediate; this is consistent with the great variability that can be seen in the constructive features of timber structures as well as in the choice of the species used to build those structures. Vernacular herit...

Subfossil tree remains from 38 high-elevation sites in the eastern Alps, which were mostly located in the province of Trentino, Italy, were dendrochronologically analysed. A total of 909 samples were collected, 497 of which were dated to calendar years through dendrochronology and separated into six groups. A further tree-ring series of 20 samples...

Samples used for the Basilica’s larch chronology

In this paper, a long-term monitoring experience on a panel painting, carried out using a whole set of analytical tools before the scheduled conservation intervention, is described. The object under analysis is a painting of the XVI century, ‘‘The daughters of the Emperor Ferdinand I’’ by Jakob Seisenegger, painted around 1534 and preserved in the...

The Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl in Trieste, Italy, hosts a collection of bowed string instruments, the majority of which have been made by local violin makers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Dendrochronological analysis afforded the terminus post quem of 17 out of 23 bellies with significant statistical parameters. With the pooled series of...

The Bell Tower of the Florence Cathedral is an outstanding example of Italian Gothic architecture and is one of the most famous buildings of Florence. This study aims at characterising the wooden structures of its roof by determining its tree species, dating the structural timber and, thereby, identifying the restoration phases and maintenance oper...

In the Fiemme Valley (Trentino, northern Italy), thousands of inscriptions can be found on the limestone cliffs of the southfacing slopes of Mount Cornón, at altitudes between 1200 and 2000 m above sea level, in the highest and most remote portion of a small cluster of villages. Concentrated along the steep trails that lead to the highest pastures,...

At the foot of the Bandiagara cliffs in Mali lives one of the most studied and yet most mysterious ethnic groups of West Africa, the Dogon. According to their religion, masks have a key role in traditional rites, since they are the link between the earthly and the divine. The production and maintenance of such important tools have precise rules han...

The construction of the Baptistry of Saint John has a debated and uncertain history; the hypothesis on its main construction phases may span from the Roman period to the 13th century, according to different authors. This uncertainty is mainly due to the lack of primary sources and certain dating issues. By combining dendrochronological analysis and...

La realizzazione di più ex voto, che in questo caso riportano date differenti, è un elemento che contribuisce a descrivere il fenomeno della produzione seriale di ex voto ribadendo inoltre che, per la natura intrinseca dell'oggetto, la data apposta sull'ex voto può riferirsi ad un periodo diverso, precedente e distante, rispetto all'epoca della sua...

The roof rafters and the lintels of the trabeated system of the Church of the Nativity were analysed, determining their tree species, dating the structural timber and, thereby, identifying the principal building/ restoration phases and maintenance operations of the Basilica. The likely provenance of the timber was also determined, giving insight in...

1. Le scrItte deLLe PIzancae (MB) tra le usanze secolari della pastorizia caprovi-na in Val di Fiemme, Trentino orientale, figura a parti-re dall'inizio del XVIII secolo il graffitismo, ovvero la consuetudine, già bene attestata in numerosi altri contesti pastorali alpini e non solo, da parte dei solitari conduttori della piccola transumanza stagio...

The Writings of the Shepherds of the Pizancae in the valley of Fiemme (Trentino): towards an Interpretative Hypothesis of Pastoral Alpine Graffiti - Ethnoarchaeological survey carried out by the Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina on the Latemar- Cornon ridge in the Valley of Fiemme, where there are found spectacular manifestations of al...

The wood provenance of what is considered today's most important collection of stringed instruments by Tuscan violin-makers, the Collection of the “Luigi Cherubini” Conservatory, at the Accademia Gallery in Florence, was analyzed dendrochronologically. On the basis of 95 geographically very widely distributed master chronologies, the most likely ar...

In archaeology, palaeobotany and dendrochronology, it can be important to distinguish between root-and stem-wood. Although numerous studies have described the root-wood of various species in great detail, there is, as yet, no quick and generally accepted wood anatomy-based method to distinguish Norway spruce root-from stem-wood. This study compared...

A total of forty-nine stringed instruments of the Conservatory Cherubini collection, at the Musical Instruments Department of the Accademia Gallery in Florence, were submitted to a dendrochronological investigation in order to date them, check the validity of their attribution and to find out more about their construction characteristics. Thirty-se...

Dieci tregge, 10 slitte simbolo delle utilizzazioni forestali e montane della tradizione sono state indagate nei loro componenti strutturali. Per ogni elemento è stato raccolto un campione destinato al riconoscimento di specie secondo quanto previsto dalla norma UNI 11118:2004. I risultati dell’identificazione sono stati confrontati con la tradizio...