The illuminated manuscript Corale 43 and its attribution to Beato Angelico: Non-invasive analysis by FORS, XRF and hyperspectral imaging techniques

In the study of illuminated manuscripts, besides the identification of pigments and constituting materials, every additional element about the manufacturing process, the artist's technique and stylistic peculiarities may be precious gain deeper insight on unknown elements such as authorship, dating, and historical contextualization. This paper illustrates the results of a scientific analysis carried out on the precious illuminated manuscript Corali 43, dated on the first half of 15th Century and with a still uncertain attribution. An experimental protocol based on the integrated use of Vis-NIR reflectance spectroscopic techniques, implemented in as both Fiber Optic Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) and 2D hyperspectral imaging, together with portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), was adopted to undertake non-invasive analysis of the illuminated folia. The combination, for the first time, of well-established techniques, such as FORS and XRF, with a novel prototype of portable hyperspectral camera proved to be a powerful experimental approach for the characterization of the material used for making this manuscript. A complete identification of the pigments and their mixtures used to accomplish the manuscript was provided. Moreover, multivariate analysis was used to visualize the pigments distributions in selected areas.