Factum Foundation partnered with the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan for an international research initiative focusing on the work of Bernardino Luini (c.1480-1532), a Milanese artist from Leonardo's circle.

Made possible by the Prefect Monsignor Franco Buzzi, President of the Accademia Ambrosiana and Fondazione Trivulzio, this pioneering international project will produce a series of multi-layer image navigators of a number of paintings and drawings attributed to Luini and his workshop. These data viewers combine in a single navigator, the colour and relief data obtained using different recording systems, offering scholars the opportunity to study objects in a new way.

Guendalina Damone, Head of Factum Foundation in Milan, coordinated the digitisation of the first five paintings in the collection of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. The works scanned in January 2017 included:

• Holy Family, Bernardino Luini, oil on panel, 118 x 92 cm
• Baby Jesus with lamb, Bernardino Luini, tempera and oil on panel, 28 x 25 cm
• Tobias and the Angel, Bernardino Luini, drawing on paper, 40,5 x 45,9 cm
• The Virgin nursing the Child, Bernardino Luini workshop, tempera and oil on panel, 51 x 41,4 cm
• Noli me tangere, Bernardino Luini workshop, oil on canvas, 95,5 x 91,5 cm
   

The Foundation recorded the surface of these works using the Lucida 3D Scanner, a system designed by Factum Arte specifically for scanning the low-relief texture of paintings. Other institutions, including the Politecnico di Milano, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Università degli Studi di Bergamo and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie, Istituto Nazionale di Ottica), employed other non-contact recording systems such as X-ray and infrared 1705 nm and infrared 1230 nm.

The data obtained from these systems was combined and integrated with the relief information obtained with the Lucida 3D Scanner. The result will be presented in high-resolution viewers, a valuable new resource with information essential for the preservation, study and dissemination of Luini’s work. The viewers produced by the Factum Foundation will set new standards for the digitisation of cultural heritage and synthesize different information in a complete digital survey of Luini.

The project was supported by Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione Gianmaria Buccellati, Alvise di Canossa and Swiss Lab for Culture Projects. The results of the project were presented to the public on the 30th November 2017 in the Convention Center at Fondazione Cariplo in Milan.