Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 133
EXAMINATION OF BOOKS FOUND IN GYÖNGYÖS DISINFECTED WITH ETHYFENE OXIDE Beatrix Kastaly-Péter Schramkó HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Significant portions of the values hidden during the summer of 1950 in the Franciscan monastery in Gyöngyös were found in April 1998. As a result of the probably uncertain future and possible destruction of the monastery’s wealth, Franciscan monks carried these books, manuscripts and antiques in baskets to different hiding places during the night. One of these hiding places was created during a reconstruction after a fire in 1904. A space of a staircase was walled in from the lower floor and arched and plastered from the upper floor. In 1950 this whole was used as a hiding place. They placed items there by removing the archstone from the top and lowered the packages into the whole. An irony of our near past history is that the unhidden part of the library was brought under state control and the service toilet of the local librarian of the National Széchenyi Library was built over this archstone. The pressure pipe leading to this toilet had been leaking for years and soaked through the books hidden underneath completely. During the reconstruction of the monastery István Harsányi and Imre Bodor art historians had been searching for the foot-space walled in 1904 and came upon the valuable group of findings together with the walled in space. OPENING THE "FINDINGS", THEIR CONTENTS, DISINFECTION AND FIRST CONDITION SURVEY The several cubic meters of books and other objects were opened on April 28th 1998. After the stone covering was removed the expected value of the findings was suspected, but the magnitude of damage caused by moisture and mould became evident as well. Therefore before the finding could be opened adequate masks, rubber gloves and disposable paper overalls had to be provided in order to screen spores. (Picture 1 and 2) We removed the books and other objects out of the hole from the lower floor, instead of from the direction they were originally placed there, in order to prevent further damages the extra weight could have caused to the findings. After a sufficient amount of objects were removed to clear the space to make enough floor space to stand on we could continue working from the upper direction as well. We laid out the books on a large surface in a room not far from the excavation, but far enough from residential sections of the building. This way we were able to discern the value of the finding and the magnitude of the damage they were subjected to (Picture 3). Zoltán Fáy and Csaba Borsody, librarians of the Franciscan Order established that 308 volumes of the over four cubic meters of excavated books and archives originated from the 18th century or were even older. Besides a few codex fragments and a small 16th century paper codex the oldest printed book found in the country was discovered, namely a 48 line Fust-Schöffer Bible from 1462. The most valuable archives found were certain Turkish correspondence 133
