Joint Research for the Conservation of Mural Paintings in Istria, Croatia
In Istria, located in the northwestern part of Croatia, numerous mural paintings were painted in churches from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Although there are as many as 150 such paintings in Istria, there are serious problems with their maintenance and management. To improve this situation, the Japan Centre for International Cooperation in Conservation is conducting a research project to establish a method for documenting the state of conservation in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the Historic and Naval Museum of Istria, and the University of Zagreb.
From March 4 to 8, 2024, we visited the site, prepared a checklist for the conservation status of the mural paintings, and conducted an implementation test on two churches located in the center of the Istrian Peninsula, with the aim of ensuring that experts engaged in the conservation and maintenance of the mural paintings would be able to efficiently utilize the information. As a result, we were able to obtain accurate information in a short period of time and confirmed that the information could be used to develop a policy for the future conservation of the murals paintings.
In the future, we will discuss the content of the checklist items to make it more complete and aim to build a digital archive through repeated implementation tests.