Video Talk - Slides
BIOGRAPHY
Marco Di Bella, Freelance book conservator, graduated at the European Course for Conservators-Restorers of Book Materials in Spoleto (Italy) in 2001. He has worked in conservation, assessment and training projects for the Camberwell College of Arts (UK), UNESCO, Yemeni Social Fund for development, ISCR (Italian Institute of Conservation), ICPAL (Italian Institute of Book Conservation), National Archive of Tripoli (Libya), University of Palermo, the Hiob Ludolf Center for Ethiopian Studies (Hamburg University), the American University of Beirut, Ludwig-Maximilians - Universität München, University of Turin. Has worked for private book conservation studios in Italy and lectured in international conferences, researched and published on archaeology of early Islamic bookbinding and book conservation. Between 2015 and 2017 has been senior manuscript conservator at the Trinity College Dublin for the Early Irish Manuscript Project. In 2018 has been part of the Clarkson Slide Archive Project.
ABSTRACT
Collection care at the historical library and archive of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory – start and developments.
Early in 2014 Prof. Stefana Milioto, then head of the Course in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, reported during a meeting of the Course’s staff, the interest showed by some of her colleagues from the Astronomical Observatory for the specialty in book conservation. As a consequence, a visit to the Observatory historical premises was organized and soon the collaboration between the Course and the Observatory to take care of their documentary heritage started when I was the book conservator in charge. It was an invaluable occasion for the Course to challenge the students and engage in a proper collection care activity, with the dual goal of teaching the students the modern approach to book conservation in collections and benefiting the Observatory’s extraordinary heritage.
In 2017, selected as a volunteer of the Italian Servizio Civile Nazionale, when asked to develop a conservation project for the documentary collections of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory, it was spontaneous to follow up on the previous experience started as a student there. After a careful planning, considering both the time allocated for the project (one year) and the needs of the collections, the work focused on the assessment and stabilisation of the Historical Archive’s materials, becoming the first preventive conservation project on INAF archives’ collection in Italy.
