Kovács Petronella (szerk.): Isis - Erdélyi magyar restaurátor füzetek 5. (Székelyudvarhely, 2006)
Mester Éva: Geometrikus alosztás, felfokozott optikai hatások, visszafogott színezés. Az art deco üvegablakainak általános restaurálási problémái. A Liszt Ferenc Zeneakadémia üvegablakainak restaurálása
from institutional sources and grants, while the students pay for their personal expenses. This cannot be expected from the majority of Hungarian students due to the different costs of living in Hungary and abroad and the university does not have a budget separated for this purpose. In the of Object Conservation Faculty, the students attend lectures with slide shows in art history and the specifics of objects and can study works of art in the exhibitions and the depositories of major Hungarian museums. The students of furniture conservation were the first to raise the idea of studying monuments and their furnishings in historical Hungary, especially Transylvania. The professors welcomed the suggestion and completed it with a professional restoration program in a museum or an ecclesiastic collection in Transylvania. In 1995, 8 medieval and baroque wooden statues and 3 painted ethnographic chests were conserved in the Csíki Székely Museum in Csíkszereda, in 1997, 7 guild chests were conserved in the Haáz Rezső Museum in Székelyudvarhely and 20 pieces of painted folk furniture in the same museum in 1998 and 2000. The latter ones can be seen in the permanent exhibition “Flowers of Székelyföld” opened in the museum in 2000. In 2000, the students took part, as members of an optional program, in the conservation of the altars that had been stolen from the Sövénység church and later found. In 001, 5 statues of the church were conserved at Szováta, in 2005, 5 guild chests were conserved in the Haáz Rezső Museum. International practical courses were also carried out in Transylvania. One was titled “The restoration of Transylvanian Saxon painted furniture” and it was organised on the initiation of the Object Conservation Faculty within the intensive Erasmus program. The theoretical program was held in Budapest, followed by a three-day trip to Transylvania, then the furniture conservator students of the participating universities (MKE - Budapest, EVTEK - Vantaa, HAWK - Hildesheim and Universitate Lucian Blaga - Nagyszeben) worked two weeks in the Astra Museum in Nagyszeben. The same year, 5 Hungarian and 15 German students restored some of the painted jointed chests preserved in the attic of the museum of Segesvár within the frames of the joint practical course of the Hildesheim University and the Object Conservation Faculty of the MKE. The Transylvanian restoration practices and the study trips connected with them are extremely popular among the students. Beside international practise and the exchange of ideas, they widen the scope, the cooperation capacities and the English language knowledge of the students. The author of the paper has been directing the above described Transylvanian conservation practices for 10 years. During this time, object conservation training started in Romania. Although these trainings are not always accredited, the first years have already left the university. With the expansion of travel opportunities and the enrichment of technical literature in the internet offer a new perspective to students as well as practiced restorers for further development. It can bring new results in respect of aid type restoration practices in Transylvania as well and they can advance them in the direction of mutual or multilateral cooperation projects. Petronella Kovács Wood and Furniture Conservator MA Head of Faculty of Object Conservation Hungarian University of Fine Arts Head of Department of Conservation Training and Research Hungarian National Musem H-1450 Budapest 9. pf. 124. Éva BENEDEK - Erzsébet MUCKENHAUPT Conservation and identification of incunabula from Csíksomlyó The library of the Csíksomlyó monastery is the only medieval Catholic ecclesiastic library in Transylvania that survived Reformation. It preserved volumes of a number of medieval libraries of Hungary and Transylvania that had been closed and those of secular and religious personalities in Székelyföld. After the suppression of the Franciscan Order (1951), they were transported to the Csíkszereda Museum in 1961 and they have been kept in the medieval building of the Csíki Székely Museum since 1970. In the 50’s scholars noted that the majority of the incunabula, and notably the most valuable manuscripts were missing. In 1980 and 1985, the “treasures” that had been considered lost were found under the Mary statue and in the walled-in window niches of the refectory in Csíksomlyó, where the Franciscan monks had hid them between 1944 and 1948. The well preserved finds from 1980 did not contain incunabula, while the 123 old books recovered from the wall of the refectory in 1985 suffered a grave biological and chemical damage. No book conservator worked in the museum at that time, so the books were conserved in Bucharest, where 30 of them were declared being beyond repair. The restored and the unrestored materials were returned to the museum. Erzsébet Muckenhaupt identified 84 incunabula and 10 prints from the 16th and 8 ones from the 17th centuries and also 9 manuscripts. In the meantime, a paper conservation workshop was established in the museum. The trained paper and leather conservator repeatedly checked the material and stated that active mould attacked the books despite former disinfection. So she started treating the books declared to be beyond repair. Another reason for conservation was to gain data on the occasion of the monographic publication of the incunabula of the Franciscan library of Csíksomlyó. The books were mouldy, dirty, defective and friable, the pages stuck together and the decoration of the hard, shrunken and defective leather bindings could hardly be seen. Penicillium spp. and Torulopsis spp. were cultivated from the mould samples. The pH value of the paper was 7.49 according to the average measured from 141
