Dear Colleague,

I would like to inform you about our summer 2013 field school, the San Gemini Preservation Studies Program, now in its 14th year, which is dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage and offers students the opportunity to study and travel in Italy. In particular, I would like to inform you about two courses we offer: one on paper restoration and a new program on book bindings restoration:

Introduction to the Restoration of Book Bindings in Italy:

May 26th – June 22^nd

This course on the restoration and conservation of bindings and their structural features aims to give an overview of the field of book conservation looking at the book as a three-dimensional structure at the theoretical level as well as with hands-on experience. The course will introduce students to the history of book making, especially concentrating on production in the Western culture.

In the workshop students will have an opportunity to make four book facsimiles with various historic bindings using traditional materials and techniques and learn to analyze and document old books in terms of the structure, materials and state of conservation. They will also perform light preventive conservation including building various types of protective covers.

To learn more about this course, please review the syllabus, which you can visit our WEBSITE.

Introduction to Restoration of Paper in Books and Archival Documents:

July 7th – August 3rd

This course is an introduction to the restoration of paper in books, archival material and documents. It gives students an understanding of the nature of paper as a material, its history and the evolution of its use over time. The focus is on paper, as a support media for writing and printing, and two-dimensional documents. The course also familiarizes students with the structure of books and their bindings. 

Besides studying the nature of the material, the course investigates the most common agents of deterioration and the various approaches to restoration of paper. Along with the theoretical lectures, the program includes hands-on workshops comprising: exercises in traditional ways of paper making; testing, analyzing and identifying types of paper, inks, paints, pigments and printing techniques; disassembling books, their bindings, and; exercises using different techniques of paper restoration.

The course will include a field project restoring paper documents from the San Gemini Historic Archives and a field trip to Fabriano. To learn more about this course, please review the syllabus, which you can visit our WEBSITE.

If you know any students, scholars, or others interested in this type of study, please inform them about our program. We would appreciate it if you could list our program on your organization's website as an available educational resource.

We have a 2013 flyer that you may wish to post on your department notice board or forward to interested parties. You can print this from our website, on our About Us page. Please let us know if you have any problem printing and we can email you the PDF.

Thank you very much.

Cordially, Max Cardillo

Director

San Gemini Preservation Studies Program