Herbarii Bruxellenses, le projet de conservation des herbiers de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique

Abstract

The Manuscripts Department of the Royal Library of Belgium do possess about fifteen ancient herbaria. Among these, there is a set of three rather damaged large volumes (for c.1400 specimens, mostly of large format), clearly dating from the seventeenth century by an author of uncertain identity. Thanks to the support of the Fund Abbot Manoël de la Serna (managed by the King Baudouin Foundation), a project including the complete restoration of these three volumes and the digitization of this thematic collection has been set up to ensure the conservation and communication of these herbaria in the best conditions, while preserving their integrity and specificity. The conservation of live bound herbaria raises many questions, dealt with by a specific literature, generated in particular by natural history museums. A fundamental element of this type of object lies in the coexistence of two elements that are a priori poorly compatible : one rigid and brittle - the dried plant - and the other flexible - the support paper. In this case, restoration allows to replace hundreds of detached plants fragments and to stabilize the degradations of the paper support while respecting the binding as well as the scientific interest in the broad sense of the concerned herbarium.