Within the Diocesan Museum of Pordenone, a specialised laboratory dedicated to the restoration of ancient textiles is in operation, under the direction of Simonetta Giacomini. It is a unique facility of its kind in the regional landscape, established with a precise vocation: the maintenance and recovery of liturgical vestments preserved in the museum's collections and in the churches of the diocesan territory.
Liturgical vestments represent a class of artefact of extraordinary complexity. The variety of materials employed — silks, velvets, metal threads, and embroideries in gold and silver — together with the delicacy of the techniques involved, demands highly specialised expertise, which the laboratory has developed and refined over the years.
In time, the laboratory's activity has progressively opened to commissions from outside the museum and to objects beyond the sacred sphere. Today it accepts restoration work across a remarkably wide range of textile artefacts: historical costumes, carpets, uniforms, drapes, upholstery and flags, bearing witness to the versatility and methodological rigour the team has acquired.Every intervention is preceded by a careful phase of study and diagnosis of the artefact, aimed at identifying the original materials, the techniques of execution and the causes of deterioration. Only on the basis of this analysis is the restoration project defined, in full accordance with the principles of reversibility and minimal intervention that govern the discipline of conservation restoration.
The laboratory thus represents not merely a centre for the safeguarding of the diocesan textile heritage, but a recognised centre of expertise, capable of meeting the conservation needs of public bodies, cultural institutions and private clients.
