Marco Gargano

• Professor
• Professor (Associate) at University of Milan

Reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) is a technique employed to assess both the intensity and directional properties of light reflected from an object, aiming to visualize an object under different incident light directions. This technique has quickly become a commonly used approach for the documentation, acquisition and deciphering for cultura...

In this research, we analyzed two handwritten music parchments, dated back between the late 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century, using non-invasive multiband (MBI) and reflectance transformation imaging (RTI), portable Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (p-XRF), and External Reflection FTIR spectrometry (ER-FTIR). The two parchment...

The Lady with an Ermine is one of the greatest masterpieces by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489-1490, depicting Cecilia Gallerani, most likely at the time when she was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. This painting belongs to a group of four portraits of women painted by Leonardo along with the Mona Lisa, Ginevra...

The spilling drop test (SDT) is a non-destructive test that uses passive thermography to characterise the property of the building surfaces to absorb and diffuse water. However, the drops made visible by the evaporation process, show unclear contours that do not allow easy quantification of the wetted area. In this work, three image segmentation me...

Since infrared reflectography was first applied in the 1960s to visualize the underdrawings of ancient paintings, several devices and scanning techniques were successfully proposed both as prototypes and commercial instruments. In fact, because of the sensors’ small dimension, typically ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 megapixels, scanning is always require...

The exhibition “The Ladies of Art”, held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2021, focused on the history of women artists during the 16th and 17th centuries. As part of the exhibition, a series of diagnostic analyses have been carried out on two paintings, thanks to the collaboration of several research institutions. The considered artworks consist o...

Defendente Ferrari, one of the most important painters of the Piedmontese Renaissance, was extremely active in the early 16th century. His Madonna with Child and two Saints (1505–1510 ca.), which was originally located in the Collegiate Church of Carmagnola (Turin province, Italy) now in the collections of Palazzo Madama - Museo Civico d’Arte Antic...

In the present work, a complete non-invasive scientific investigation of six Utagawa Kunisada’s woodblock prints (nishiki-e) belonging to the Oriental Art Museum “E. Chiossone” (Genoa, Italy), was performed in situ. The campaign started with high resolution multiband imaging (visible, multiband fluorescence, near infrared) followed by reflectance t...

The potential of any multi-analytical and non-invasive approach to the study of cultural heritage, both for conservation and scientific investigation purposes, is gaining increasing interest, and it was tested in this paper, focusing on the panel painting Madonna della Tenda (Musei Reali, Turin), identified as a 16th-century copy of the painting by...

A multidisciplinary investigation was conducted on the painting Judith with the Head of Holofernes from about 1530, attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder. The investigation started with a digital imaging approach using several techniques in the UV–VIS-IR range, as well as X-radiography. The imaging approach was combined with physico-chemical charac...

Digital close-range photogrammetry allows to acquire high-fidelity tridimensional models useful to document cultural heritage objects with an impressive level of detail. In addition, this technique carries a strong analytical potentiality, able to gain improved knowledge of cultural objects and their preservation conditions. This project is focused...

The paper reports the results obtained from the digital survey of Giottesque frescoes in the Archiepiscopal Palace of Milan. Multispectral Imaging and Image Based Modelling techniques have allowed the study, the high-resolution documentation and the virtual reassembly of the fragmented frescoes: the integration of spectral data with RGB ortho-image...

This article provides a quantitative analysis of the ability to faithfully reproduce the profile of objects using the Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) coupled with Normal Integration technique. The study was conducted using ad hoc designed and built reference targets. It was possible to compare the profiles obtained using RTI technique with...

Reflectographic analyses applied on paintings can be performed using cameras equipped with different detectors with different abilities in detecting and visualizing underdrawings, repainting, restorations, and other nonvisible information. In this research, the results obtained through thermographic imaging followed by statistical imaging postproce...

The present work introduces the preliminary outcome of one of the tasks inside the MOBARTECH project, that is the creation of the prototype for a compact FORS spectrophotometer capable of automatically identifying pigments and dyes. On the road toward this goal, we focused on the automation of pigment identification, as aspect of great interest whi...

The research aims to characterize the thermal behavior of a rock mass forming a little hill at the confluence of two glacial valleys in the Italian Alps, known since centuries for the particular warm microclimate and its botanical-archeological park. The characterization from a thermophysical point of view is done both with laboratory tests exploit...

Imaging methods based on visible luminescence induced by ultraviolet (UV) radiation are well consolidated in the investigation of ancient works of art, to map varnishes, retouches, and possibly some pigments. As far as contemporary art is involved, the wide range of synthetic materials, especially pigments, introduced from 1850 onwards, makes the p...

In healthy subjects, the transient perturbation of body part ownership is accompanied by regional skin temperature decrease. This observation leaves an open question about a possible body part-specific thermoregulatory response in pathological conditions, in which the sense of ownership over that body part is altered. For instance, Body Integrity D...

Lighting is a critical component in a museum environment because, together with temperature, relative humidity and pollutants, it is one of the damaging factors able to produce long‐term, cumulative and irreversible photodegradation processes. To correctly preserve artworks, limiting illuminance and exposure is recommended, allowing on one side the...

The conservation process of historical musical instruments involves lots of different issues because, in most cases, musical instruments are played. One of the most frequent and delicate procedures for their preservation is to remove soil and dust that have been accumulated on the instruments surface. For the first time, bio-polymer gels made of Al...

Microfading testing allows to evaluate the sensitivity to light of a specific artwork. Characterization of the illumination spot is important to determine its shape, dimensions, light distribution, and intensity in order to limit and account for possible damage. In this research the advantages and disadvantages of several methods used to determine...

This paper reports a comparative study on inks and pigments of nine old manuscripts belonging to the Algerian heritage. The manuscripts are held by Afniq n Ccix Lmuhib, one of the richest and best known private libraries from Kabylia region – Algeria. They date back from the 14th to the 19th century and treat disciplines ranging from astronomy to p...

Microfading testers have become widely accepted by the conservation science community for establishing and recommending appropriate lighting conditions that minimize damage to collections. These devices offer the opportunity of measuring the photostability of cultural heritage objects due to their optical setup, which allows to conduct and quantify...

Restoration and conservation procedures for historical musical instruments involve several issues, also connected with their frequent being played. One of the most delicate procedures for their preservation is the cleaning of surfaces from soil and dirt which have accumulated over the years. In fact, when external particles reach the surface, a fra...

The project “Leonardesque Artists beyond the Visible” was planned on the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, with the occasion of an exhibition held in Milan in 2019, where more than twenty works made by Leonardesque masters have been put on display. Among them, five representative paintings made by his closest pupils were selected...

The recent conservative project of the imposing panel painting The Martyrdom of St. Catherine painted by Gaudenzio Ferrari (c.1477–1546) has been a precious opportunity to deepen the scientific knowledge about the execution technique—hitherto scarcely investigated—of one of the prominent exponents of the Lombard and Piemontese Renaissance. The cons...

Pulsed thermography was exploited to identify the presence of glass defects in order to get an indication of the conservation status of archaeological glass. Indeed, the process of degradation in artifacts subjected to centuries of burial can be of great relevance. More specifically, we evaluated the potential of pulsed thermography to map the pres...

Monitoring surface moisture content (MC)is a required activity and a topic of current interest in conservation studies. The present work examines the possibility of using the spectral reflectance factor at 970 nm (Rλ970) for the noninvasive quantitative determination of surface MC in building materials. Indeed, the quantification of surface liquid...

Lapis lazuli use stretches back more than 6500 years; ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome treasured and prized it. Afghanistan has been the oldest source for this stone, while Chile, Canada, Russia and a few other countries have been reported as sources for raw material in more recent times; the rarity of historical...

In art conservation, UV luminescence is a widespread technique: traditionally, longwave UV-A lamps (365 nm-emission peaks) are used to highlight the distribution of varnishes or retouches, and some pigments such as the red lakes. Recently, a new method of luminescence has been tested, induced by a multispectral UV-Vis radiation source (11 narrow ba...

In the context of paintings characterization, X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) combined with Fibre Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) is a well-known methodology. The latter allows to classify the pigments constituting the external layers (few microns) of the painting while the former provides the fingerprint of the main chemical elements present in al...

The use of non-invasive analytical techniques on cultural heritage objects usually faces the insurmountable limit of dealing with artworks subjected to more restorations. For painted surfaces, imaging techniques, such as infrared photography (NIR) and ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence (UVIVF), allow to distinguish areas with different kind a...

The process of degradation of archaeological glass subjected to centuries of burial can be of great relevance: typical consequence of degradation in the original vitreous material is rainbow-like iridescence due to chemical alteration of surface layers, salts formation and ion migration. The research presented in this paper is focused on the study...

A promising approach in oncology consists in combining Radiation Therapy (RT) with Magnetic Fluid Hyperthermia (MFH). Modern day RT takes advantage by imaging techniques able to provide information about the correct patient set-up, target position and movement during the treatments. For these purposes, gold fiducial markers, implanted into the tumo...

Purpose of this study is to test if possible effects of gelation temperature and pH on the cross-linking process between poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and glutaraldehyde (GTA), have consequences on the dosimetric properties of PVA-GTA Xylenol Orange Fricke gel dosimeters. Therefore, dose-response curves and Fe 3+ diffusion rate of PVA-GTA Fricke gel do...

The combination of Radiotherapy and Magnetic Fluid Hyperthermia (MFH) is gaining importance since it may offer new strategies for several oncological pathologies. In MFH magnetic nanoparticles are injected directly into the tumour and, under the action of an externally applied alternating magnetic field HAC, they generate an amount of heat proporti...

The Giotto’s masterpiece God the Father with Angels, never investigated till now, was studied by our team of local researchers, involved in application of scientific methods for cultural heritage since many years. Exploiting the integration of different knowledges, technologies and resources of our team, we were able to provide data to understand t...

God the Father with Angels (about 1330, tempera on panel) by Giotto is the Gable of the altarpiece of Baroncelli Chapel in the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Very little is known about its history since the separation from the so-called Baroncelli Polyptych. Now at the San Diego Museum of Art, the Gable had never been studied by means of scient...

The response of Fricke xylenol orange gelatin dosimeter has been studied to investigate the possibility of achieving a calibration method based on a pre-irradiation procedure. With this aim, different pre-irradiation parameters have been tested and the system response to subsequent irradiations has been investigated. Both Fricke gel layers and cuve...

The Royal Museums of Art and History of Brussels holds six coffins of the 21st Dynasty coming from a single discovery, the Second Cachette of Deir el-Bahari (Bab el-Gasus) (L. Delvaux & I. Therasse, Sarcophages. Sous les étoiles de Nout, Bruxelles 2015, p. 83–111). Since their discovery in 1891, their rich decorations have been subjected to deep ma...

Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus depicted a detailed drawing for an improved wooden canal lock to control the water flow in Milan's canal system. Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci” in Milan has been conserving two pairs of canal gates in its storage for more than fifty years, until a complete and multidisciplinary study...

Optical absorbance and dynamic light scattering studies of Fricke xylenol orange gel dosimeters loaded with laponite were carried out with the aim to investigate possible effects of nanoparticles on the dosimetric properties and diffusion phenomena of ferric ions. A procedure for incorporating laponite nano-sized clay particles into the gel dosimet...

In the recent years electro-osmosis drying devices applied to walls in both modern and historic masonry has become one of the leading innovative techniques to prevent damages caused by capillary rising water in building materials. Since the scientific community is raising many doubts on these techniques, the authors aim to propose a fast, simple, n...

Although moderate relationships (| r | ∼ 0.5) were reported between skin temperature and performance-related variables (e.g., kinetic), it remains unclear whether skin temperature asymmetry reflects muscle force imbalance in cycling. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess whether a relationship exists between kinetic and thermal asymmetry d...

Scintillating optical fibres have shown interesting results for ionizing radiation monitoring. Since they may enable a remote, punctual and real-time dose assessment, their application in medical dosimetry is very promising. This work aims to summarize some recent progresses in the development and characterization of rare-earth doped silica optical...

Facial asymmetry is considered a marker of psychological, emotional and physiological distress, while anxiety is a behavioural, psychological and physiological response to a threat to well-being. Since individuals respond to anxiety with specific patterns (e.g., muscular tension), it is reasonable to hypothesize that anxiety could contribute to fac...

Purpose: To determine the efficacy of an anti-discoloration system (ADS) in a 0.12% chlorhexidine (CHX) mouthwash to reduce dental discoloration. Methods: A triple-blind, cross-over, randomized clinical trial was carried out in 22 healthy volunteers asked to perform oral rinses, twice a day for 21 days, using 0.12% CHX mouthwashes containing or...

Non-invasive, portable analytical techniques are becoming increasingly widespread for the study and conservation in the field of cultural heritage, proving that a good data handling, supported by a deep knowledge of the techniques themselves, and the right synergy can give surprisingly substantial results when using portable but reliable instrument...

The most common method to derive a temperature value from a thermal image in humans is the calculation of the average of the temperature values of all the pixels confined within a demarcated boundary defined region of interest (ROI). Such summary measure of skin temperature is denoted as Troi in this study. Recently, an alternative method for the d...

Infrared reflectography is an imaging technique used to visualize the underdrawings of ancient paintings; it relies on the fact that most pigment layers are quite transparent to infrared radiation in the spectral band between 0.8 μm and 2.5 μm. InGaAs sensor cameras are nowadays the most used devices to visualize the underdrawings but due to the sm...

Studies on the optical absorbance spectra of Fricke xylenol orange gel dosimeters were performed, in the wavelength range from 300 nm to 800 nm, in order to highlight some particular characteristics that can affect the achievable precision. The spectra are different mainly due to the different types of xylenol orange that was used and to a lower ex...

The paper deals with the measurements of thermal, optical and mechanical properties for aged textiles. The use of textiles for building temporary shelters is a widespread common practice for the protection of archaeological sites. Temporary shelters often become long-term structures, because of the necessity of prolonged excavation and the need to...

Purpose: To assess the impact of implant system on color harmonization of periimplant mucosa. Materials and methods: In this case series, color of periimplant mucosa was compared with color of natural tooth gingiva. Seventeen intercanine implants were analyzed (11 bone level [BL], 6 tissue level [TL] implants). Colorimetric data, at 2, 4, and 6...

The use of thermal imaging in monitoring the dynamic of skin temperature during prolonged physical exercise is central to assess athletes’ ability to dissipate heat from the skin surface to the environment. In this study, seven elite cyclists completed an incremental maximal cycling test to evaluate their skin temperature response under controlled-...

Introduction Scintillator dosimeters (SD) have been a research topic by many groups over the last decade. The recent availability of a commercial system (Exradin W1 by Standard Imaging) represents a significant accomplishment. The attractiveness of SD would be furtherly enhanced by a scintillator free from any spectral superposition with the Cheren...

Introduction Fricke gel dosimeters allow measurements of 3D dose distributions and can be an effective tool for dosimetry verifications in radiotherapy. Various authors have reported drawbacks of the gels affecting the accuracy in case of low dose measurements. Purpose This study aims at investigating such drawbacks and at establishing the conditi...

Purpose: To evaluate the application of a fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) prototype probe for 45°x: 45° FORS for determining color of dental materials. A portable spectrophotometer with a highly manageable fiber optics co-axial probe was used to apply 45°x: 45° FORS for color matching in restorative dentistry. Methods: The color coor...

Low intensity resistance training with slow movement and tonic force generation has been shown to create blood flow restriction within muscles that may affect thermoregulation through the skin. We aimed to investigate the influence of two speeds of exercise execution on skin temperature dynamics using infrared thermography. Thirteen active males pe...

The old library of the Certosa di Pavia still holds thirteen graduals, choir-books with lyrics and scores. Their rich decorations were made by various artist–monks during the fiftieth century. In 2009, the gradual numbered 814 underwent a conservative restoration intervention under the supervision of the Certosa Museum Director, Letizia Lodi, to be...

The aim of this study was to investigate the immediate effect that kinesio taping (KT) application on vastus lateralis and vastus medialis has on skin temperature (Tsk) of rectus femoris before and after a sprint cycling effort. Eight subjects were tested on a 6 s cycling sprint in two conditions: without KT (nKT), and with KT on both limbs (KT2)....

This work describes a simple use of active Infrared Thermography developed to detect the level of weathering of a statue with respect to cracks observed on the surface. The statue "Ratto delle Sabine" of Giambologna is exposed in the Galleria of the Accademia in Florence-Italy and was the object onto which the methodology of analysis was used. Radi...

Rare earths-doped silica optical fibers have shown promising results for ionizing radiation monitoring, thanks to their radio-luminescence (RL) properties. However, the use of these systems for accurate and precise dosimetric measurements in radiation fields above the Cerenkov energy threshold, like those employed in radiation therapy, is still cha...

A calibration method has been studied for attaining, with good precision, absolute measurements of the spatial distribution of the absorbed dose by means of the Fricke gelatin xylenol orange dosimetric system. With this aim, the dose response to subsequent irradiations was analyzed. In fact, the studied modality is based on a pre-irradiation of eac...

The response of a Fricke xylenol orange gelatin dosimeter has been studied to investigate the possibility of achieving a calibration method for absolute measurements of the spatial dose distribution with good precision. With this aim, the dose response to sequential irradiations and its behavior in time have been investigated. Light absorbance anal...

Imaging techniques are commonly used to improve the legibility of text in ancient or degraded documents. Infrared reflectography is one of the best methods for examining documents written in a carbon-based ink since the contrast between the ink and the support is usually much greater in that band. In these cases, for archival and study purposes, th...

Background Several musical instruments in the past centuries were decorated with engravings, inlays, or paintings. This paper focuses on an integrated approach to detect and characterize the kind of dyes when used for the decorations. The multi analytical campaign was performed on a viol made by Joannes Marcus in the second half of the 16th century...

Non-destructive analyses directly on painted surface and micro sampling are useful in many cases to obtain information about the material characteristics of both pigments and fresco structure of ancient mural paintings. In our case artworks could not be studied under laboratory conditions, and the majority of data had to de recorded in a short time...

IR camera systems can be used for reflectographic analyses to detect and visualize underdrawings in paintings. Five technologies have been compared: CCD Si, FPA InGaAs, FPA HgCdTe and InSb detectors, and a vidicon tube. The comparison has been performed studying the relative contrast measured on homogeneous pictorial layers in infrared regions betw...

Infrared reflectography is an imaging technique used to visualize the underdrawing of ancient paintings. An underdrawing is a preparatory drawing sketched by the artist on the preparation layer before the painting is made. Pigment layers are quite transparent to infrared radiation in the spectral band between 0.8 and 2.5 microns. The preparation la...

Heat dissipation during sport exercise is an important physiological mechanism that may influence athletic performance. Our aim was to test the hypothesis that differences exist in the dynamics of exercise-associated skin temperature changes between trained and untrained subjects. We investigated thermoregulation of a local muscle area (muscle-tend...

The researchers focus on the IRT procedure of heat diffusion in ceramic finishing materials of contemporary architecture. The aim of the research is the development of a method for the thermal characterization of clinkers, a very common ceramic finishing material of buildings. The first experimental phase was performed in laboratory on clinkers of...

Specific respiratory muscle training improves athletes' performance particularly at high intensities. This work aims to study the usability of infrared thermography to evaluate two types of breathing, thoracic and diaphragmatic, on the cartographies of the cutaneous temperature of the trunk. IR thermography is a non-invasive technique that visually...

Measurement of colour is mainly performed using colorimeters but the size of these instruments does not allow to perform measurements in all cases. For this reason we have employed Fibre Optic Reflectance Spectrometry (FORS) to measure colour. With this work we want to give a preliminary study about colour measurements obtained by a spectrometer wi...

This paper explains the role of nondestructive testing (NDT) in the protection of archaeological sites, as well as research activity and a pilot project in Sardinia, an island region of Italy. Microclimate, surface temperature and sun irradiation, as well as wind direction and speed were monitored for two years by means of infrared thermography, ps...

In this work, the potentialities and limits of the investigation by portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) of complex polychrome stratigraphies are discussed. Data are affected by the mutual influence effects of the chemical elements that characterize mineral pigments, by the sequence and the thickness of the paint layers in the strati...

Infrared thermography (IRT) was used to map moisture distribution and to identify areas with anomalous water content in modern and ancient building structures. This paper describes two different approaches that used IRT to map evaporative flux on wall surfaces, and to assess the potentials and limits of the technique. The first part of the paper de...

Among the main physiological stress indicators, the temperature evaluation is very important and innovative because it may be monitored without directly interacting with the animal. The use of a thermographic system, which is based on the detection of infrared radiation emitted by a subject, is a suitable method in order to measure temperature with...