Radiography and Computed Tomography for Works of Art

The chapter represents an introduction to the application of X-ray Radiography and Computed Tomography to the analysis of archaeological findings and artworks. These powerful non-destructive techniques are able to give morphological and physical information on the inner structure of the investigated objects; therefore they are more and more frequently applied in the field of Cultural Heritage not only for conservation and restoration purposes, but also to increase the knowledge about the construction technique of a particular artefact or work of art. Due to the large variety of size and composition that is typical of Cultural Heritage, different X-ray sources, detectors and setups are necessary to meet the different needs of the various case studies. Moreover, as it is difficult to move the works of art from the place where they are located, it is very important to develop equipments easily movable. In the chapter a broad overview of radiography and tomography systems with different technical characteristics will be addressed, accompanied by examples of applications in the Cultural Heritage field. The last section will be devoted to neutron Computed Tomography and its application as a complementary technique to X-ray CT.