The techniques already tested in Rome and Venice for monitoring cultural heritage with 'nature-based' methods have also been successfully applied in two prestigious Argentine museums, confirming the usefulness of leaves and lichens as bioaccumulators of automotive metal particulates.
A team of experts fromNational Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV),University of Siena (UniSI) andNational Academy of the Lincei he studied the diffusion of automotive polluting particulate matter inside the halls of the National Museum of Fine Arts and the National History Museum of Buenos Aires, in Argentina, through the exposure of lichen transplants, combined with the sampling of leaves of Fraxinus Americana e jacaranda mimosifolia, to study their accumulation properties of potentially toxic chemical elements of vehicular origin.
The study, entitled “Magnetic and chemical biomonitoring with lichens and vascular plants for the preservation of cultural heritage: A case study at two museums in a megacity (Buenos Aires, Argentina)”, published in the magazine 'Science of the Total Environment', has shown that the rooms of the observed museums are not affected by significant levels of metallic particulate matter of vehicular origin. Such particulate matter, whose main origin was found to be the abrasion of vehicle braking systems, is instead widely present outside the two museums.
The research was carried out within the CHIOMA project (Cultural Heritage Investigations and Observations: a Multidisciplinary Approach)”, whose acronym is inspired by the ecosystem services offered by trees, and used integrated magnetic and chemical methods to characterise the abundance, composition and granulometry of the metal particles emitted in correspondence with two high-density vehicular roads facing the Museums in question.
“After the studies carried out in Rome, at Villa Farnesina and on the Palatine Hill, and in Venice, at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, we applied the protocol for the combined use of leaves and lichens in an international context, in Buenos Aires, to verify the potential of this methodology in a different urban environment both at the ecosystem level and in terms of road and vehicle typology, obtaining excellent indications on the general validity of this 'nature-based' approach for the preventive conservation of cultural heritage", declares Aldo Winkler, head of the Paleomagnetism Laboratory of the INGV, who supervised the magnetic investigations.
”In this study, in addition to proving the efficiency and sensitivity of lichens as bioaccumulators of polluting metal particles, the efficiency of two different tree species spread throughout the museum area was compared, demonstrating that The Jacaranda, an iconic tree of Buenos Aires, is particularly suited to offering services to protect urban spaces from the spread of polluting automotive particulate matter", stresses Stefano Loppi, professor at the Department of Life Sciences of the University of Siena, who curated the lichen exhibition and the chemical investigations, together with Lisa Grifoni, PhD student at UniSI and INGV.
“This study was born within the activities of CERIF, the Lincean Centre for Research on Cultural Heritage - Villa Farnesina, exporting the pioneering investigations of 2020, carried out in the Lodges of Love and Psyche and Galatea, in a urban context strongly influenced by intense vehicular traffic, which can threaten, in terms of air pollution, artistic assets, notoriously damaged by dark layers, abrasion and deterioration, resulting in artistic loss. Multidisciplinary analyses have provided comforting results, considering the presence of very famous works by Édouard Manet and Paul Gauguin”, he adds Antonio Sgamellotti, National Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and co-author of the study.
The study was conducted in collaboration with the scientific teams coordinated by Mark Chaparro, for the Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, and of Fernando Mars e Marcos Tascon, for the Centro de Estudios sobre Patrimonios y Ambiente, of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires.
Photo 1: Placement of lichen grafts on “The Surprised Nymph” by Édouard Manet, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
Photo 2: Display of lichen transplants on a tree jacaranda mimosifolia, in the area of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires
Photo 3: The flowering of a tree Jacaranda mimisifolia in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts.