New insight about the mural painting branches of Roman baths in Reggio Calabria (original) (raw)

Proceedings of the 2022 IMEKO TC4 International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

The Roman thermae in Reggio Calabria (Italy) provides many information regarding both engineering and technology for this type of buildings. A small treasure of three survived mural paintings encloses information about the artistic style and the ancient luxury of the baths. In order to get light on the executive technique and conservation state we performed the investigation of these paintings by following a non-invasive approach composed of multispectral imaging and spectroscopic analysis. By so doing, we determined the pigment palette and the distribution of some pigments allowing us to make some hypothesis about the executive technique and to provide a basis for a future virtual restoration of the paintings.