The Selene PSS installed at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan © Factum Foundation
The Instituto is one of the most important, and possibly the most unknown, collections of Andalusian art in the world. It contains more than 9.000 objects including textiles, ceramics, coins, seals, weapons, carved gems, paintings, manuscripts, books and a vast archive of over 60.000 documents.
During the first month, the team recorded the surface of dozens of antique embroideries, revealing their texture in 2.5D. The Selene PSS has also been tested on different surfaces, such as Hispano-Arab ceramics, illuminated documents, and astrological tools, focusing on the material evidence embedded in their surfaces. While the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan is not open to the public as a museum, it provides access for researchers to study their collections and archives on site. The ongoing 2D and 3D digitisation with the Selene is now allowing access to hundreds of unique objects remotely, via specially designed multi-layered online viewers. The project will soon move to the next phase, with the goal of having most of the 9000+ items of the collection recorded to help with their conservation, study and dissemination.
Acces the online viewers
As part of this collaboration between Factum and the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, the team also recorded in 2.5 and 3D a series of objects that were exhibited in January 2025 at the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
The Selene PSS installed at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan © Factum Foundation
One of the astrolabes from the Instituto’s collection, recorded with and without colour using the Selene PSS © Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
Nature print (colour and 3D) © Factum Foundation | Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
“Artistic treatises are essential for understanding the creativity behind the technologies of their time. They reflect the beliefs and knowledge that shaped the skills of the many professional guilds involved in making objects and can still speak clearly today. Manuscript versions of printed books often reveal surprising changes.
Factum Foundation has scanned two unique manuscripts preserved at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid (IVDDJ). The first manuscript is titled Primera y segunda parte de las reglas de la carpintería (First and Second Part of the Rules of Carpentry), written by Diego López de Arenas between 1613 and 1618. The second manuscript is the Tratado de la pintura en tres libros (Treatise on Painting in Three Books) by Francisco Pacheco, completed in 1638. Both are early manuscript versions of treatises that were later published—López de Arenas’s in 1633 and Pacheco’s in 1649.
These early manuscript versions can be considered significant, as their content was later modified. In the specific case of Arena’s tratise, these modifications were carried out by authorities at the request of the guilds themselves, aiming to limit the spread of the knowledge of manual skills. Despite professional resistance, both Arenas and Pacheco were determined to share their skill and knowledge. Likewise today, digitisation that provides access to the materiality of these manuscripts contributes to the free circulation of knowledge. By making these historical documents accessible through advanced scanning and analytical technologies, Factum and IVDDJ are not only helping to preserve the physical objects, but are promoting an open and collaborative approach to knowledge sharing.
The results obtained with Selene PSS technology allow us to understand these treatises as creative diaries – the direct contact between hand and paper brings us closer today to the presence of the author than has been possible for many years. Corrections, erasures, patches, cut-outs, and added pages act as recipes describing the transformation of wood and paint. Thanks to photometric analysis, we can reveal and engage in ways that generate new insights and ask new questions about the multiple layers of information inherent in these two manuscripts.”
Santiago Del Bosque
Tratado de la pintura en tres libros (Treatise on Painting in Three Books) by Francisco Pacheco © Factum Foundation | Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
Tratado de la pintura en tres libros (Treatise on Painting in Three Books) by Francisco Pacheco, without colour © Factum Foundation | Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
Primera y segunda parte de las reglas de la carpintería by Diego López de Arenas © Factum Foundation | Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
Primera y segunda parte de las reglas de la carpintería by Diego López de Arenas, without colour © Factum Foundation | Instituto Valencia de Don Juan
