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We report the results of an analytical investigation on the bronze alloys of the Porta del Paradiso by Lorenzo Ghiberti using a portable X-ray fluorescence instrument. The study was carried out on five panels of the bronze artwork. It provided information on the artist’s selection of the sculptural alloys and on some manufacturing details of interest for understanding the development of the art foundry during the early Renaissance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neutron radiation meets the demand for a versatile diagnostic probe for collecting information from the interior of large, undisturbed museum objects or archaeological findings. Neutrons penetrate through coatings and corrosion layers deep into centimetre-thick materials, a property that makes them ideal for non-destructive examination of objects for which sampling is impractical or unacceptable. A particular attraction of neutron techniques for archaeologists and conservation scientists is the prospect of locating hidden materials and structures inside objects. Time-of-flight (TOF) neutron diffraction allows for the examination of mineral and metal phase contents, crystal structures, grain orientations, and microstructures as well as micro- and macro strains. A promising application is texture analysis which may provide clues to the deformation history of the material, and hence to specific working processes. Here we report on instructive examples of TOF neutron diffraction, including phase analyses of medieval Dutch tin-lead spoons, texture analyses of bronze specimens as well as of 16th-century silver coins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]