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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
July 2016 - May 2020
July 2016 - August 2016
Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Position
- Principal Investigator
January 2015 - February 2016
Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Position
- Principal Investigator
Publications
Publications (62)
This work deals with the archaeometric investigation on 25 fragments of terra sigillata (red-coated ceramic ware and moulds) found in the city of Arezzo, Tuscany (central Italy), and attributed to several important workshops from the first century BCE to the second century CE. Optical and spectroscopic techniques were used to analyse both the ceram...
Evidence of plant food processing is a significant indicator of the human ability to exploit environmental resources. The recovery of starch grains associated with use-wear on Palaeolithic grinding tools offers proof of a specific technology for making flour among Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Here we present the analysis of five grindstones from t...
The Lombardian Prealps belong to the Central part of the Southern Alps. Since the lower Jurassic this area, as generally the whole Southalpine, characterizes for an articulated morphology of the substratum, with uplifted elements (platforms, plateaus) and adjacent basins, as a consequence of the rifting and distension (faulting) caused by the openi...
Metropolitan City of Florence, together with the Superintendence for Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan city of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato (SABAP), and with the University of Florence, Department of Earth Sciences (UNIFI- DST), proposed an experimental diagnostic construction site for the conservation and...
In this work, the consolidation efficiency of SiO2 nanoparticles (synthesized in the Chemistry laboratories at the Tor Vergata University of Roma) was tested on Pietraforte sandstone surfaces belonging to the bell tower of San Lorenzo (Florence, Italy) and was fully investigated. Nanoparticles (synthesized in large-scale mass production) have been...
The Tomba dei Demoni Alati is located in the Etruscan necropolis of Sovana (Grosseto, Southern Tuscany, Italy). At the end of the 1990s, excavation revealed remains of this aedicule tomb, carved into red tuff; in 2004, further excavation highlighted new important figurative elements. The Etruscans used different methods to decorate the rock surface...
This work focuses on the Eastern Lombardy Prealps (central Southern Alps), including the Brescia and Bergamo provinces. Knappable lithic raw materials are represented by cherts and radiolarites which are quite common in the Jurassic-Cretaceous sedimentary series. Tectonics played an important role for the preservation of good chert outcrops. Severa...
Laboratory-synthesized CaCO3 nanoparticles and their nanodispersion in 1,4-butanediol as a working medium have been first characterized and then tested on the surface of Pietraforte stone that forms the cladding of the bell tower of San Lorenzo. Both CaCO3 nanoparticles and their nanodispersion in 1,4-butanediol were characterized in the church in...
The study of ancient parasites, named paleoparasitology, traditionally focused on microscopic eggs disseminated in past environments and archaeological structures by humans and other animals infested by gastrointestinal parasites. Since the development of paleogenetics in the early 1980s, few paleoparasitological studies have been based on the anci...
New archaeointensity results were obtained from 14 groups of baked-brick fragments collected in and around Pisa (Tuscany, Italy). The fragments were assembled from civil and religious buildings whose dating of construction or renovation, over the past millennium, was constrained by documentary sources. This collection, analysed using the Triaxe pro...
New archaeointensity results were obtained from 14 groups of baked-brick fragments collected in and around Pisa (Tuscany, Italy). The fragments were assembled from civil and religious buildings whose dating of construction or renovation, over the past millennium, was constrained by documentary sources. This collection, analysed using the Triaxe pro...
A paleosurface with a concentration of wooden-, bone-, and stone-tools interspersed among an accumulation of fossil bones, largely belonging to the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus, was found at the bottom of a pool, fed by hot springs, that was excavated at Poggetti Vecchi, near Grosseto (Tuscany, Italy). The site is radiometrically...
In the summer of 2018, during the repaving works of Piazza della Repubblica in Florence (Italy), the excavations revealed anthropized levels from the Roman age up to today. The modern Piazza lies upon the ancient foro of Florentia, a roman colony founded in 59 BC. The foro was a paved square adorned with monumental buildings, among which the Capito...
Archaeobotanical investigations at Gonfienti, a
Middle Bronze Age-Iron Age settlement in the mid-Arno River
Valley (Tuscany, Italy), revealed the human activity in the
territory, in particular crop cultivation and plant gathering from
the wild. The progressive decrease of the plants of wet environment
hints to interventions for soil reclamation aro...
The study concerns the experimental grindstones used to understand the dynamics of the use of the grinding tools found in the Gravettian camp of Bilancino (Florence), which for the first time in Europe documented the production of flour in the Upper Palaeolithic.
The identification of starch grains on these tools, largely referable to Typha sp., r...
Work on thermal pools at Poggetti Vecchi in Grosseto, Italy, exposed an up to 3-meter-thick succession of seven sedimentary units. Unit 2 in the lower portion of the succession contained vertebrate bones, mostly of the straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus , commingled with stone, bone, and wooden tools. Thermal carbonates overlying Unit...
Western Lombardy is a rather homogeneous territory from both a physiographic and a morpho-structural perspective and it is characterised by a general abundance of siliceous resources in the Western Prealps with a high suitability for knapping. However, the analyses of the lithic assemblages tackled to only a limited extent the issues related to lit...
Western Lombardy is a rather homogeneous territory from both a physiographic and a morpho-structural perspective and it is characterised by a general abundance of siliceous resources in the Western Prealps with a high suitability for knapping. However, the analyses of the lithic assemblages tackled to only a limited extent the issues related to lit...
The Vie Cave are a suggestive network of roads deeply entrenched in the rock, dating back to the Etruscan civilization; these ancient roads connect various settlements and necropolises existing mainly in the area of Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano towns (Southern Tuscany, Italy). The Vie Cave are located in a peculiar geomorphological site, character...
The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum (Naples, Italy) is a Roman domus, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The house had a wooden roof with decorated ceiling, which was discovered in 2009. The roof represents an extraordinary archaeological find and, although it was found mainly disassembled, some of its wooden decorative...
The Etruscan civilisation originated in the Villanovan Iron Age in the ninth century BC and was absorbed by Rome in the first century BC. Etruscan tombs, many of which are subterranean, are one of the best representations of this culture. The principal importance of these tombs, however, lies in the wall paintings and in the tradition of rich buria...
Archaeological excavations in Florence (Italy) offered the opportunity of collecting archaeobotanical data along stratigraphic sequences and pits from late Roman to Middle Ages; until now, no archaeobotanical data of this range of time were available for Florence. To achieve a more comprehensive reconstruction of the antique landscape and of the pl...
New approaches in the application of multispectral imaging to the recovery of archeological wall paintings are presented, based on statistical techniques and on a novel method of image treatment (Chromatic Derivative Imaging – ChromaDI) which offers a way of embedding information coming from four spectral bands into a standard RGB image. The method...
Tomba della Scimmia is part of the antique religious arts related with the Etruscan funerary cult. This hypogean monument is located near Chiusi, Italy, eight meters below the ground level. It is decorated with wall paintings realized with hematite, Egyptian blue and charcoal black. During time, some conservation problems occurred, such as wall dec...
The paintings from Tomba della Scimmia, in Tuscany, are representative of the heavy bacterial colonization experienced in most Etruscan necropolises. The tomb remained open until the late 70's when it was closed because of severe deterioration of the walls, ceiling and paintings after decades of visits. The deterioration is the result of environmen...
Supplementary Information
In archaeology, the discovery of ancient medicines is very rare, as is knowledge of their chemical composition. In this paper we present results combining chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations on the well-preserved contents of a tin pyxis discovered onboard the Pozzino shipwreck (second century B.C.). The contents consist of six fla...
This work presents the non-invasive analysis, through time of flightneutron diffraction, of a unique grey metal ferrous artefact in the shape of an awl. This object was found together with other copper samples in the Selvicciola Necropolis, which includes 34 eneolithic underground tombs, dated radiometrically between halfway through the fourth mill...
The identification of the chaff used as temper in ancient ceramics represents a possible source of information about the area of origin of the pottery. This paper studies the occurrence of rice (Oryza sp.) chaff in potsherds from the archaeological site of Sumhuram (Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman). The information gathered at the site offers insight int...
In questo lavoro viene presentato uno studio di tipo non invasivo volto alla caratterizzazione di manufatti di rame, ricchi in arsenico, appartenenti al periodo Eneolitico (circa 4000 AC). I campioni provengono dalla Grotta del Fontino (Provincia di Grosseto). Lo stato di conservazione dei reperti è molto vario, con alcuni campioni che presentano u...
The objective of this chapter is to analyze how the local landscape and environmental conditions influenced the evolution of the city-states of Pisa, Florence (Firenze), and Siena, primarily from the High (~1000–1300 AD) to Late Medieval Age and early Renaissance (~1300–1500 AD). The three cities are located in the province of Tuscany in the centra...
Since the Neolithic, large fluvial catchments of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean favored the onset and development of complex human communities that adopted significantly different socio-economic practices from those of the nomadic, hunter-gatherer cultures of early Prehistory (Redman 1978; Bellwood 2004). Alluvial soil fertili...
Key issues related to surfaces and materials in the study and conservation of archaeological, artistic and historical objects are presented and illustrated with case studies. The materials cover a relatively broad chronological and compositional range. An important objective of the review is to inform the materials science and engineering community...
The early geomorphological events occurring in the mid valley of the Arno River have determined a suitable setting for the foundation of Florence. Fluvial processes shaped the future area where Bronze Age people settled down possibly on a seasonal base, followed by the Etruscans and the Romans that selected the same location as a suitable place for...
This work presents the results of an investigation of the painting technique used in the Etruscan tomb “Tomba della Quadriga Infernale”. This tomb was discovered in Sarteano (Siena, Italy) in October 2003 and dated back to the second half of the 4th century BC. Red, dark red, pink, yellow, white, black, and grey colours were used in the tomb in ord...
A large number of bowls containing colors were found in Pompeii. These colors represent the original raw materials used for Pompeian wall paintings, and their recovery allowed us to chemically and mineralogically characterize their constituents. Our study focused on white, black, grey, blue, yellow, red, pink-violet, and green colors. The analysis,...
This paper describes a multi-analytical chemical study performed on the original, almost totally conserved, content of a small ceramic jar from the Antinoe archaeological site (fifth to seventh centuries ad, Roman Egypt) and now belonging to the archaeological collection of the Istituto Papirologico ‘Girolamo Vitelli’ (Florence, Italy). Scanning el...
In December 1998, during excavation for the construction of a new building near San Rossore railway station in Pisa, the remains of ancient ships were discovered. These findings have been dated (radiocarbon) to between the end of the 10th centurybcand the fifth centuryad( Belluomini et al. 2002 ). Several transport amphorae belonging to the Helleni...
The results of the stratigraphic and sedimentological analysis carried out at an exceptional archaeological site situated in the coastal plain of the Arno and Serchio Rivers (western Tuscany, Italy) are reported. The site, discovered near central Pisa, records a 1000-yr history of a riverine harbour built by the Etruscans and used by the Romans. Th...
In 1998, an ancient shipping wharf was brought to light in Pisa, Italy. The shipwrecks found there showed human activity from
the Etruscan to the late Roman Empire periods. Sandy sediments burying the ships and related materials show four main periods
of catastrophic floods separated by thin muddy layers pointing to phases between flooding episodes...
The Uffizi Gallery owns an extraordinary collection of Roman marble sculptures which are important for the histories of both antique and collectors' taste. A variety of statuaries, busts, sarcophagi and reliefs, and all parts of the antiquarian collection of the Medici family were restored by famous artists between the 16th and 19th century. Many o...
This work presents the results of a diagnostic survey on the shipwrecks from the archaeological site of the ancient harbour of San Rossore (Pisa, Italy). The original waterproofing, caulking and painting materials were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC–MS), energy‐dispersive...
The provenance of 20 marble samples drawn from the Trajan's arch at Ancona, which is supposed to be made of Greek, Hymettian marble, has been established on the basis of the independent use of EPR and isotopic data. The results of the two methods are in good agreement and unequivocally indicate a Proconnesian provenance. Sixteen samples are assigne...
The Direction of the geomagnetic field over the last 2000 years has been determined in Europe, including Italy, from a number of archaeomagnetic studies. However, such a variation curve for the first Millennium BC is still uncertain. Here we present new data on Italian archaeological fired materials, attributed to the Etruscan period (IV to VIII ce...
Le débat sur la catégorie des outils, traditionnellement classés sous le terme de burin, généralement défini comme " outil destiné au travail des matières dures, en particulier des matières osseuses " s'enrichit par conséquent de l'apport, encore que préliminaire, de l'étude de l'industrie de Bilancino, où deux processus techniques très différents...
