Innovative Monitoring Plan for the Preventive Conservation of Historical Musical Instruments

The Cultural Heritage preservation, by means of preventive actions aimed to reduce the risk of deterioration and to protect the constituent materials, implicates several difficulties for the conservators. The musical instruments can represent a particular class of artworks, because their conservation is not limited to the material preservation, but also to the original function of the object (produce sounds). Some historic instruments, held in the collection of Museo del Violino in Cremona, were selected in order to evaluate the suitability of the non-invasive analytical techniques to monitor the ongoing material transformation. The historic violins "Vesuvio" 1727c. by Antonio Stradivari and "Carlo IX" 1566 by Andrea Amati were selected for their higher and lower use in performances over the years 2016/2017. Moreover, the cello "ex- Cristiani" 1700 by Antonio Stradivari was analysed after a concert with the aim to evaluate any modification of the varnishes.