ABOUT LACONA XIII

LACONA “Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks” is the International Conference on advances in photonic techniques for diagnostics and conservation-restoration of cultural heritage.
Since 1995, LACONA has gathered together researchers, conservators, and restorers from public institutions and private enterprises for discussing about novel approaches in non-invasive material characterization, conservation treatments, and monitoring based on photon sources and sensors.

The topics of the Conference focus on innovation in dedicated spectroscopic, imaging, and laser treatment systems and on their optimized application over the whole range of the conservation themes of tangible heritage.
LACONA XIII, which will be held in Florence, on September 12-16, 2022, aims at strengthening and enriching the tradition of the Conference by encouraging the submission of contributions on the most advanced photonic tools and methods, their rigorous validation, and exemplary applications in safeguarding cultural heritage.

HISTORICAL NOTE

The biannual International Conference series LACONA “Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks” started in 1995 in Heraklion, within the scientific and technological context of a significant growth of the laser ablation applications in surgery, electronics industry, and conservation of stone heritage. Since then, this scientific event has been held in several countries: Liverpool, UK (1997), Florence, IT (1999), Paris, FR (2001), Osnabrück, DE (2003), Vienna, AT (2005), Madrid, ES (2007), Sibiu, RO (2009), London, UK (2011), Sharjah, UAE in 2014, Kraków, PL (2016), and Paris, FR (2018).

The early editions of LACONA were mostly devoted to the application of laser ablation in conservation-restoration treatments, although they also gathered several contributions dedicated to the use of photon sources for diagnostic purposes. For examples, LIBS and Raman spectroscopy applications were presented since LACONA I, while other spectroscopic approaches and various imaging techniques have been reported since LACONA III. Starting from LACONA VI, photonic diagnostics and laser treatments have got almost balanced numbers of papers.
According to this tradition, LACONA XIII aims at collecting new evidences of the huge potential of the photonic approach in characterization of the state of conservation, surface treatments and assessments, preventive conservation, and other.