Cultural Heritage Environments: Monitoring Strategy for Preventive Conservation of Cultural Assets and Human Health Protection

Objects of historic artistic value, conserved in indoor deposits or exhibited inside museum halls, are strongly influenced by the environmental parameters, as temperature, relative humidity and light quality. Environmental parameters directly impact the structural integrity of constitutive materials and promote microbial colonization on artwork surfaces, leading to biodeterioration. In cultural heritage dedicated environments (CHE), the microbial load may exist both on art works surface and in the environmental aerosol (bioaerosol), maintaining a unique balance. In this study, through a multi-phasic approach the presence of bacteria and fungal colonies in the aerosol and artifacts surface, of an exposure hall, have been investigated. This study defined specific, non-invasive procedures to sample microbial colonies, spread both on artworks surface and in the aerosol of dedicated indoor environments. Results from morphological analysis (microscopy, in vitro culture) and molecular investigation (microbial genomic DNA), provided useful information on the composition of the microbial consortia, allowing a complete understanding. Microorganisms, in addition to inducing artifacts biodeterioration are able to produce and release, in the aerosol (bioaerosol) of surrounding environment, biological particles and molecules (spores, cellular debris, toxins and allergens), potentially dangerous for the health of operators and visitors. The complete understanding of the consortia is peculiar to counteract the microbial colonization, also performing green strategies.