Gates to Paradise: Creating metal doors for 11th-12th century churches

In close cooperation with our colleagues from the CNR from Perugia, Firenze and Catania and thanks to E-RIHS.it we are back to Venice in March 2023 in order to study the inlays of the two bronze doors from San Marco. So far, we could individuate six different types of inlays through our previous XRF-analyses in January 2022:

1. Silver (Ag): face, hand and most feet of the person depicted, as well as parts of their dresses;
2. Black (niello; main elements detected: Cu, Ag): dresses, surrounding decorations;
3. Red (cinnabar; main elements detected: Cu, Hg): dresses, shoes, accessories (only on the main door);
4. Reddish (Cu): decorative elements (only on San Clemente);
5. Yellow (unknown): decorative elements on the panel and the main bronze structure of the side door (only on San Clemente);
6. Gold (Au): on silver parts, possibly connected to a gilding procedure.

This month, we focus on selected plates and frames of both parts in order to obtain further information about the chemical composition and nature of these inlays with the help of further non-invasive analyses: SWIR, FTIR, RAMAN, XRD and micro-XRF will be used.