An Innovative Monitoring Plan: the Case of Museo del Violino (Cremona, Italy)

Preventive actions have increasingly been playing an important role over time in the Cultural Heritage Conservation. The aim of this practice is to reduce the risk of artworks’ deterioration and to slow down the natural ageing of materials. The case of musical instruments is generally more complex since it deals with both the material preservation needs and the original function of the object to produce sounds. The Arvedi Laboratory of Non-Invasive Diagnostics has outlined an innovative monitoring plan to check the instruments’ preservation status through the time in order to suggest better conservation practices and to ensure the material durability. Microclimatic conditions and some analytical parameters have been monitored through non-invasive methods during the period of a year. Three violins of the collection held in the Museo del Violino were selected, both less and frequently played, to understand the influence of sound performances on the material preservation.