Scientific Investigations of a 16th Century Stall Belonging to the Evangelic Church in Bistri？a, Bistri？a-N？s？ud County, Romania

The Evangelic Church in Bistri？a city is one of the important gothic monuments in Romania. Inside the church there have been preserved a series of furniture pieces from different centuries, and the stall that has been analysed in this study is one of them. The study presents the investigations that were made on the occasion of restoring the stall. The nature and the status of the wooden supports and also the composition of the painting layer which covers the front side of the stall were investigated by several methods: Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses. The back side of the stall was made of spruce fir wood and its status was also investigated. The nature of the component elements and the heritage value of the ensemble were also established. 1. Introduction Located at the foot of the Barg？u Mountains, not far from the Barg？u Pass (Pasul Tihu？a in Romanian) which connects Transylvania region to the Bucovina one, the town of Bistri？a is one of the oldest around. The greatest attraction of Bistri？a is the Evangelical Church (see Figure 1) built by Transylvanian Saxons centuries ago. Figure 1: Bistri？a’s Evangelical Church. The first mentioned parish in official documents was Johannis plebanus de Bystricia, noted in the papal tax registers of 1332-1333. The construction of the Gothic church with Renaissance elements (i.e., the pews) began in 1470 and was completed almost 100 years later by Petrus Italus de Lugano, who added renaissance elements to the structure. The furniture was made at the beginning of the XVI century and it is the object of an exquisite craftsmanship. The two stalls, sculpted and decorated with marquetry details, as well as a seats’ bench that has a gothic inscription and Early Renaissance ornaments—piece made in 1516 by the monk Benedict of Beclean—were brought from the Dominican Monastery after its ruining during the Reform time. The bench of the hospital magister was the work of a craftsman named Anton, in 1508, and it was decorated in a manner that it can be found in Late Gothic geometry. Another valuable piece is the sacristy’s cabinet, dated, as the inscription says, from 1507. The door of the sacristy carries a true artistic value (with marquetry details, dated 1563) and the stall placed in the right side of the door—dated in back to 1564. Those pieces are added to many other dated back to the XVII and XVIII century, decorated with painted ornaments, inscriptions, and guild marks [1–3]. The analysis of the wood artifacts can be made through