Rome, December 2020 — On the occasion of the exhibition “The Oriental Collection of the Italian Geographical Society: A Heritage to Be Known, Preserved, and Enhanced,” conservation treatment made it possible to display a seventeenth-century Ottoman document and two early nineteenth-century Japanese volumes, all of which were in poor condition.
The Vocabulary of the Ainu Language, relating to the indigenous people of the island of Hokkaido, and the Ottoman Firman offer a glimpse of the vast heritage preserved by the Italian Geographical Society at Palazzetto Mattei. These works are testimonies to cultures distant in time and space, conveying a style and aesthetic that are characteristic and representative of the identity of a people and of past eras.
The Firman is an expression of the Ottoman Empire and its sultan, featuring decorative elements in gold and pigments, refined Arabic calligraphy, and laid paper, possibly imported from the West. The two volumes of the Ainu Vocabulary, bound with a silk thread that passes through the indigo-dyed covers and all the thin folded pocket pages, are examples of Japanese book art.
Exhibitions such as that of the Oriental Collection of the Italian Geographical Society often face the challenge of having to undertake the restoration of some of the items to be displayed. Indeed, exhibition can place stress on artifacts, especially those in a fragile state of conservation. In such cases, conservation treatment becomes a necessary step, restoring to these remarkable objects both their dignity and their functionality.