The phases of recovery and reassembly are extremely important because they allow to enrich a documentation that otherwise would remain only circumstantial (Barbet 2016 Groetembril 2016). The need to improve documentation highlights the importance of collecting fragmentary paintings during archaeological excavation: great attention must be paid to recording the connections between the fragments, which must be numbered, documented through photographs and by means of surveys, in order to facilitate subsequent remounting. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the corpus of wall paintings found in different areas of the Roman Empire has increased in recent decades such evidence is most often fragmentary and lacunose, difficult to fit into an overall scenario though (Dubois and Niffeler 2018). Recently, it has also been observed how much the typology and lexicon of the so-called Pompeian styles have influenced studies in Roman painting (Bragantini 2019).

It has been repeatedly emphasised indeed that the frescoes preserved in situ – that is, as an integral part of the building – qualify the function of the rooms, contribute to defining the paths of use of the building itself, and may also reflect the patrons’ ambitions and social level (Wallace-Hadrill 1994). in the original context which they belonged to, or fallen in fragments following the wall’s collapse or reused as debris in different contexts-even in landfills (Carrive 2017).Īs regards in situ frescoes, the Vesuvian area (Southern Italy) offers exemplary evidence it has attracted great interest from scholars since the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Instead, there is almost no or scarce evidence of portable paintings on wooden panels (the Fayum mummy portraits and the pinakes-boards-from Pitsà represent precious exceptions), or other types of support like marble, of which the monochromata of Herculaneum are a famous/paradigmatic example (Sampaolo 2009 Lenzi 2016).įrescoes have been found in diverse conditions, either they had remained in situ, i.e. The history of Roman painting is mainly a history of wall painting.

2021) provide insights into the variety and different uses of these materials. Furthermore, two papers on cosmetic (Pérez Arantegui 2021) and bioactive (antibacterial) pigments (Knapp et al. An overview of the use of inks, pigments and dyes in manuscripts, their scientific examination and analysis protocol (Burgio 2021) and an overview of glass-based pigments (Cavallo and Riccardi 2021) are also presented. 2021) As-based yellows and reds (Gliozzo and Burgio 2021) Pb-based whites, reds, yellows and oranges (Gliozzo and Ionescu 2021) Hg-based red and white (Gliozzo 2021) and organic pigments (Aceto 2021). 2021) Cu-based greens and blues (Švarcová et al. A series of archaeometric reviews illustrate the state of the art of the studies carried out on Fe-based red, yellow and brown ochres (Mastrotheodoros et al. Three archaeological reviews on prehistoric (Domingo Sanz and Chieli 2021), Roman (This paper) and Medieval (Murat 2021) wall paintings clarify the archaeological and historical/cultural framework. The second group of contributions is focused on pigments, starting from a philological essay on terminology (Becker in press). Furthermore, several issues concerning the degradation and conservation of mortars and plasters are addressed from practical and technical standpoints (La Russa and Ruffolo 2021, Caroselli et al. An insight into their production, transport and on-site organisation is further provided by DeLaine ( 2021). The first group of contributions explains how mortars have been made and used through the ages (Arizzi and Cultrone 2021, Ergenç et al. The chosen perspective is that of a multidisciplinary scenario, capable of combining, integrating and solving the research issues raised by the study of mortars, plasters and pigments (Gliozzo et al. This Topical Collection (TC) covers several topics in the field of study, in which ancient architecture, art history, archaeology and material analyses intersect.

Pre sequential art columns and friezes