Discovering the world of the Samurai.

Starting from 29^th March and up to 3^rd November 2013, an exhibition entitled “Samurai!” will be held at the Stibbert Museum in Florence: it gathers 70 masterpieces of the museum collection: they are fascinating Japanese armours, helms, blades, saddles, stirrups and other objects belonging to the life of a Samurai… The point of view is very interesting: particular attention is given to the artisan techniques and the materials employed like steel, silk, leather, lacquer.

The Stibbert Museum is not well known outside Florence, despite the fact that its Japanese collection is one of the most important beyond Japan. The Museum was created by Frederick Stibbert, an anglo-italian who inherited a large capital by his family of soldiers, and devoted his money to the collection that he transformed into a museum and left to the town of Florence. At present the collection, enriched by donation and purchase after his founder’s death, is made up of about 50000 objects. It includes not only a Japanese army, but also a European and an Islamic one, a picture gallery (portraits from the 16^th to the 18^th century), a section of porcelains (interesting for the 19^th century production) and one of costumes (European, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean clothes).

Recently, the rich and diversified Japanese collection of this museum, has drown the attentions of the archaeometrists, who could use non destructive and non invasive techniques such as portable X-rays Fluorescence and the neutron techniques like Diffraction and Imaging. The exploitable information goes from the elemental composition to the average bulk properties of the sample. For example, it is possible to reconstruct the sections or volumes of the blades, deducing interesting information about the forging methods of the different Japanese traditions and schools.

Now, I invite my readers to visit this exhibition and the hosting museum, and to be particularly careful to the discoveries of science and technology that will gradually unveil the details of this fascinating world.

To learn more:

* www.museostibbert.it

To learn more… ”Archaeometrically speaking”:

* F Salvemini, F Grazzi, A Agostino, R Iannaccone, F Civita, S Hartmann, E Lehmann, M Zoppi, Non-invasive characterization through X-ray fluorescence and neutron radiography of an ancient Japanese lacquer, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, February 2013, DOI 10.1007/s12520-013-0127-6.

* F Salvemini, F Grazzi, S Peetermans, F Civita, R Franci, S Hartmann, E Lehmann, M Zoppi, Quantitative characterization of Japanese ancient swords through energy-resolved neutron imaging, Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 2012, 27, 1494-1501.

* F Grazzi, LBartoli, F Civita, R Franci, A Paradowska, A Scherillo and M Zoppi, From Koto age to modern times: Quantitative characterization of Japanese swords with Time of Flight Neutron Diffraction, Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 2011,26, 1030-1039.