Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 3(1) Suppl.: 45-48, 2019 Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/substantia Citation: F. Frasca, A. Garuti, G.L. Calzoni (2019) “Antichi Strumenti Orafi” of the Garuti Collection – The Vir- tual Exhibition. Substantia 3(1) Suppl.: 45-48. doi: 10.13128/Substantia-604 Copyright: © 2019 F. Frasca, A. Garuti, G.L. Calzoni. This is an open access, peer-reviewed article pub- lished by Firenze University Press (http://www.fupress.com/substantia) and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distri- bution, and reproduction in any medi- um, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All rel- evant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Competing Interests: The Author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest. ISSN 1827-9643 (online) | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-604 “Antichi Strumenti Orafi” of the Garuti Collection – The Virtual Exhibition Francesca Frasca1, Adelmo Garuti2, Gian Lorenzo Calzoni3 1 Sapienza, University of Rome, Department of Classics, Rome, Italy 2 Goldsmith in retirement, owner of the Garuti Collection, Sasso Marconi, Bologna, Italy 3 University of Bologna, Department of Biology, via Irnerio, 42, Bologna, Italy Abstract. The “Antichi Strumenti Orafi” Virtual Exhibition is a multidisciplinary pro- ject developed by The Department of History and Cultures of the University of Bolo- gna in collaboration with the Garuti Collection’s owner, Adelmo Garuti. Garuti, a goldsmith in retirement, has been collecting tools and machineries related to his pro- fession for years, and has placed them in Sasso Marconi (Bologna, Italy). This unique Collection shows the inside of the old goldsmiths’ workshops, giving us the opportu- nity to rediscover a world that has changed dramatically since the coming of Informa- tion Technology and 3D Computer Graphics in the gold working industry. This Virtual Exhibition (www.antichistrumentiorafi.it) (Fig. 1) shows the most relevant objects of the Garuti Collection and describes their functioning, so the visitor can follow each step of the precious metals working process. The objects can also speak on their own about the workshops they belonged and about their producers. That gives the visitor the opportunity to know something more about goldsmithing in Bologna - the main city represented in the Collection – and in general about this sector in Italy between the 19th and 20th century. Keywords. Virtual exhibition, Ancient Goldsmithing, ancient tools, industrial herit- age, industrial archaeology. The realization of this Virtual Exhibition has requested over three and half years of documentation and study of the huge and heterogeneous Col- lection set by Adelmo Garuti. Probably there is no such an exhibition in Ita- ly, and maybe in Europe, for the quantity and quality of objects and docu- ments included. They belong different workshops and refer to different ages and come from the 18th century to the second half of the 20th century. All the objects have been captured in high resolution, classified and dat- ed, including all the hardcopy archive of the Collection, made up of sheets and technical notes from the workshops (Fig. 2), ancient photos, old cata- logues, and much more. Researches in historical archives have been performed to collect infor- mation on single workshops or factories, in order to dedicate a special ses- sion of the Exhibition to the Industrial Archaeology. The importance of this virtual platform was clear since the early stages of the work. It has the pur- 46 Francesca Frasca, Adelmo Garuti, Gian Lorenzo Calzoni pose of dissemination to the public, including non-spe- cialist visitors, and also to give the academics new per- spectives in the studies concerning ancient metallurgy. It also gives the opportunity to visit the Collection from different parts of the world, without physical barriers and limitations of time. Another purpose of this project is to get in touch with other exhibitions or collections like this around the world, to discuss and share knowl- edge and experiences. Very often old workshops definitively close down and all their equipment are sent to dump. Most of the objects and tools of the Garuti Collection have been donated to Garuti through the decades by goldsmiths in retirement or by their families. Many of these objects have also been restored by Garuti himself. He likes to talk about his Collection, about the cir- cumstances of the recovery of the objects and, above all, about his profession. He started as apprentice in Bologna, in the workshop of a goldsmith, Romano Degli Esposti, in 1960 (Fig. 3). His job became his life and even now he dedicates himself to it, preserving the knowledge of the past and trying to pass it down to the new generations. Considering how this technical and artistic knowl- edge was handed down, from one generation to another, during the years of practice, the risk to lose all this her- itage with the current industrial progress is real. The platform chosen for this Virtual Exhibition is a CMS software (Content Management System) that allows to handle different kind of contents, like photos, videos and more. The Exhibition is designed to guide the visitor through a main path, that starts with the first steps of gold manufacturing. The main menu, at the top, has several sections, including the one that leads to the heart of the Exhibi- tion: the “Virtual Tour” (Visita Virtuale) (Fig. 4). This one is dedicated to the working stages of precious metals and starts from the melting of gold, going on with roll- ing, drawing, engraving and so on. A multi-level menu shows the user how the tour is structured, step by step, so he can choose to follow this fil rouge or not. Every working stage is explained in detail, focusing on the tools and machineries employed, with particular attention to those from the Collection. Some of them have also dedicated pages, because of their importance in the working process or for their rar- ity (Fig. 5). After each explanation there is a gallery of Figure 1. Home page of “Antichi Strumenti Orafi” The Virtual Exhi- bition. Figure 2. Technical sheet and its mould from Ditta Oreste Guidi. Figure 3. The “History of the Collection” (La Storia della Collezi- one) page, and a picture of young Adelmo Garuti in the Romano Degli Esposti’s workshop. 47“Antichi Strumenti Orafi” of the Garuti Collection – The Virtual Exhibition all the objects referring to the page. The user can watch them one by one, with a slide show. At the end of each section visitors can go on with the guided tour or jump to another section at their will. Many of the machineries are manually operated and for some of them videos have been provided to show their functioning. More videos will be recorded in the next future to increase that kind of contents. Every page has links to specific contents, that send back to other sections of the exhibition, or lead to other external contents shared by on-line museums or digital archives. A dedicated tool gives the visitor the opportunity to look closely into every object with a special lens. It allows the observation of specific details on the surface of the objects, like dates, brands, colours and signs of use (Fig. 6). Concerning brands, as previously said, there is a spe- cial section dedicated to the history of the workshops and producers of the objects exhibited. This section is called “Factory Brands and Workshops” (Marchi e Botteghe) and leads to three different sub-sections (Fig. 7). One is dedi- cated to the Ditta Oreste Guidi, established in Bologna in 1898 and closed before the early 2000s. The second one is about another important workshop in Bologna, estab- lished in 1909 by Enea Stefani. Stefani mainly worked sil- ver objects that are still highly renowned and appreciated even after the closing of his shop, occurred in 2015. Figure 4. The multi-level menu of the “Virtual Tour”. Figure 5. The multi-level menu and one of its pages, dedicated to relevant objects. Figure 6. The “lens” tool at work, a square window to see details on the surface. Figure 7. The “Factory Brands and Workshops” page and its related sub-sections. 48 Francesca Frasca, Adelmo Garuti, Gian Lorenzo Calzoni The third subsection is dedicated to an Italian fac- tory – established in Alessandria in 1840 by Giovanni Battista Mino – and therefore called G. B. Mino & Figli. The Mino factory produced machineries and tools for goldsmiths and silversmiths and received awards from the Italian Government for its innovations in this sector. The Garuti Collection has numerous objects from Mino, especially rolling mills and drawing plates. There are also machineries from foreign countries like Germany, France, United Kingdom and from the U.S.A. The “Antichi Strumenti Orafi” Virtual Exhibition is still improving its contents, with researches and new relevant acquisitions. This project cannot be considered completed, it’s still in progress and our purpose is to offer the public new sections and increase the current ones. Sharing and dissemination are as important as preserving objects, because we now live in a transition era. Some professions are now referring more and more to machines, therefore we are losing some techniques and know-how that are not reachable in books but are learned from every day practice and from the voice of old artisans. 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