Authentication of a Stradivarius “Petite Violin” Type from 1723

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript its clear, relevant and well-structured, but it also has several errors that the authors must improve for publishing. The references that they used are relevant, but they must to add more references to justify some affirmations that they made and to support the scientific soundness of the article. They must to give more details of the experiments to make the results reproducibles.

 

Generalities

-       Add the conditions under which the results have been obtained for all the techniques used, not only the conditions to which the analysis instruments can work.

-       Add sampling criteria, where the samples were taken from, in which areas, how the samples were taken, the preparation of the samples carried out for each of the analysis techniques, etc.

-       Add software used with SEM-EDX.

-       In tables: use . or , to separate decimals, but not both, unify criteria.

-       Review the number of decimal places in the tables and unify criteria.

-       In section 3.8. there is a lack of bibliographical citations and literature throughout the text that confirms the proposals made.

 

Title

Line 2: Put quotation marks well

 

Abstract

Lines 18-19: These instrumental techniques aren’t very modern, there are convectional techniques applied in the study of Cultural Heritage.

 

Line 19: The SEM is not coupled with X-ray Diffraction (XRD is not EDX)

 

Line 22: Use the same nomenclature in all the article, petit or petite

 

Lines 21-26: Improve the writing of this phrase, which was revarnished? The label or the violin?

 

1.     Introduction

Line 41: Delete / between Giuseppe and del

 

Lines 43-56: Improve the writing. Very long paragraph and difficult to follow

 

Line 62: Add “and” between “Joachim”) and the name

 

Lines 80-84: It would be advisable to add a reference that supports it

 

Line 122: These instrumental techniques aren’t very modern, there are convectional techniques applied in the study of Cultural Heritage.

 

Line 123: The SEM is not coupled with X-ray Diffraction (XRD is not EDX)

 

2.     Materials and Methods

Line 130: Change “electron microscopy” for “scanning electron microscopy and X-ray microanalysis” (SEM-EDX)

 

Line 131. Change spectrophotometry for spectroscopy. Add the acronym of thermal analysis in dynamic mode.

 

Line 158: Change spectrophotometer for spectrometer.

 

Line 164-165: Please delete phrase: “The HYPERION 1000 microscope is an accessory that can be coupled with almost any Bruker FTIR spectrophotometer”. It is repetitive.

 

Line 166: Same that line 158.

 

3.     Results and discussions

Lines 199-212: Dimensions and identification. There are no references that verify that these measures correspond to the “petit violin”. Add some references.

 

Lines 221-222: How do you know this? In the “History of the violin” it says that the owner has no data on any restoration. Justify.

 

Line 237: How has the type of wood been identified? Justify and add references.

 

Line 267: How has the type of wood been identified? Justify and add references.

 

Lines 277-280: Justify this affirmation with literature and references.

 

Lines 295-299: Review the peak identification and justify all the peak assignation with literature and references. Only for one peak it cannot be assigned. Remove decimals.

 

Lines 341-344: Review the peak identification and justify all the peak assignation with literature and references. Remove decimals.

 

Line 341: The EDX results can’t take to justify organic materials.

 

Lines 366-368: Justify this affirmation with literature and references.

 

Table 2: Add literature for the “reference values” or explain it. Why are these values and not others?

 

4.     Conclusions

Lines 445-451: Justify this affirmation with literature and references.

 

Lines 491-492: Category B of national asset of which country?

Author Response

Thank you for your revision!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting article that addresses a very specific field of world sound heritage conservation. To do this, it uses advanced scientific methods of analysis that corroborate and certify the characteristics of the materials used in the construction of the piece studied and the interventions it has undergone. I believe that the scientific approach is adequate in most of its aspects, although the expression of the results obtained can be improved by means of a simple table where the identified materials are visualized in a more schematic way. It is important to make a good outline of the parts of the work studied and relate the identification of materials with the function they fulfill, for example in the case of varnish. This data is important since one of the aspects that I identify as weaknesses of the work is the absence of an adequate comparative morphological historical study of the work studied making reference to other cases. I also recommend that regardless of whether the study has served for its authentication, the data provided is very important to indicate that they can be used for subsequent preventive conservation or restoration treatments of the object, which I recommend that it be included in the conclusions.

Author Response

Thank you for your revision!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx