Portrait of a man in red chalk archive#

вЂњAs the drawings are nowadays conserved, thereвЂ™s no way that insects can go in and, you know, make their things there,вЂќ PiГ±ar tells Wired. All told, the works remained quite well preserved over the years, save for some вЂњ foxingвЂќ-brown spots of discoloration that are typical on old paper, writes Matthew Taub for Atlas Obscura. Per a statement, the findings led the team to suspect that bugs may have defecated on the works of art before their archives were upgraded to the sterile, laboratory-like standards of today. Researchers analyzed seven works, including Uomo della Bitta, a sketch housed at the Corsinian Library in Rome. coli, as well as bacteria typically found in the guts of fruit flies. Strains identified on the drawings included several associated with the human gut, like Salmonella and E. To their surprise, the researchers found that bacteria, not fungi, dominated the microbiomes of the sketchesвЂ™ surfaces. вЂњSo we have to live with these tiny samples that we get to obtain all the information.вЂќ But we cannot take samples,вЂќ PiГ±ar explains to Wired. вЂњIn any other environmental study, you can go there, you can take kilos of soil or liters of water.

Scientists then processed the samples using вЂњnanoporeвЂќ genetic sequencing, a new tool developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies that can exploit relatively tiny samples of DNA to identify a large number of microbes. Because the drawings are extremely delicate, the team carefully dabbed their surfaces with sterile membranes made of cellulose nitrate and used gentle suction tubes to remove microbes without damaging the paper. The team published its findings this month in Frontiers in Microbiology.ДЄccording to Matt Simon of Wired, the researchers studied five sketches held in the Royal Library of Turin and two from the Corsinian Library in Rome, including Autoritratto (also known as Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk, the work is widely thought to be a self-portrait in the artistвЂ™s old age) and Uomo della Bitta. Led by microbiologist Guadalupe PiГ±ar of ViennaвЂ™s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) and aided by new DNA sequencing technology, the researchers uncovered hidden traces left behind by curators-and even insects-on the priceless paper works over the centuries.

Portrait of a man in red chalk archive#

But while the archetypal Renaissance manвЂ™s surviving works have been carefully preserved and studied for centuries, another Leonardo archive remains relatively unexplored: the troves of microbes and fungi that rest on the surfaces of his works, countless in number but invisible to the human eye.ДЄ team of microbiologists in Italy and Austria recently took a closer look at the вЂњ bio-archiveвЂќ that rests on seven of LeonardoвЂ™s 500-year-old sketches, reports Rafi Letzter for Live Science. Leonardo da Vinci produced a stunningly diverse oeuvre, from the Mona Lisato codices discussing the possibility of human mechanical flight and groundbreaking anatomical sketches.