Flavia Ravaioli

Research Associate/Senior Objects Conservator (interim)

Flavia Ravaioli is a Research Associate and Senior Objects Conservator at the Fitzwilliam Museum. She is interested in materials-based research that spans art history, conservation and heritage science. Flavia currently leads the research project Global Connections: Islamic Art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which focuses on two collections: Persian medieval ceramics and casts of the Alhambra Palace in Granada.

Flavia specialises in the investigation and treatment of painted surfaces, and is researching new treatment approaches for consolidating matte paint. She has worked extensively on Egyptian funerary artefacts at the Museum, as well as at the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna (Egypt). As part of the ongoing Ancient Egyptian Coffins Project, she carries out technical examination, pigment analyses and conservation treatments on painted wooden coffins and cartonnage cases. She recently taught a graduate course on the conservation of organic materials for the University of Gothenburg.

Prior to joining the Museum, she was a Researcher in Conservation at University College London (UCL), for the project ‘Materiality and Preservation in Islamic Contexts’ (2015-2017). She previously worked as an archaeological conservator in Italy, Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey. Flavia holds an MSc and MA in Conservation from UCL, and a BA in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Bologna.

Publications

Edited Volumes
Lababidi, Reem & Ravaioli, Flavia (Eds). (2017). Heritage Preservation in Islamic Contexts. Akkadia Press. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10027825/

Book chapters
Ravaioli, Flavia (2020). Putting Sustainability into Practice: The Use of Locally Available Materials in Conservation. In: Peters, Renata F., den Boer, Iris, Johnson, Jessica & Pancaldo, Susanna (Eds). (2020). Heritage Conservation and Social Engagement. UCL Press, online at https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/168814
Golfomitsou, Stavroula & Lithgow, Katy & Ravaioli, Flavia & Dillon, Cath (2021). Coming clean project results. In: Golfomitsou, Stavroula & Lithgow, Katy (Eds). (2021). Coming Clean: Perspectives on Cleaning in Museums and heritage spaces. The Getty Conservation Institute. In preparation.
Ravaioli, Flavia & Lababidi, Reem. (2017). Introduction. In: Lababidi, Reem & Ravaioli, Flavia (Eds). (2017). Heritage Preservation in Islamic Contexts. Akkadia Press, pp. 1-6, online at http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10027825/

Refereed Journal article
Rowe, Sophie & Ravaioli, Flavia & Tully, Catherine & Narvey, Megan. (2018). Conservation and Analysis on a Shoestring: Displaying Gut Parkas at the Polar Museum, Cambridge. Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies. 16(1), p.2. http://doi.org/10.5334/jcms.157

Conference Proceedings
Golfomitsou, Stavroula & Ravaioli, Flavia & Tully, Catherine & McArthur, Graeme & Lithgow, Katy. (2017). Off the record: Using data mining to review decision making in conservation practice. Preprints of the ICOM-CC Triennial Conference 2017, Copenhagen.
Dillon, Catherine & Golfomitsou, Stavroula & Ravaioli, Flavia & Storey, Cymbeline & McArthur, Graeme & Lithgow, Katy. (2017). A clean sheet: A bottom-up and mixed methods approach to understanding visitors’ perceptions of dust, dirt and cleaning. Preprints of the ICOM-CC Triennial Conference 2017, Copenhagen.

Technical Reports
Ravaioli, Flavia. (2019). Study and conservation of a miniature Egyptian coffin, online at https://blogs.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/conservation/2019/10/07/study-and-conservation-of-a-miniature-egyptian-coffin/
Ravaioli, Flavia. (2014). Sustainable Materials for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage: Researching Appropriate Conservation Methods in Iraqi Kurdistan. The British Institute for the Study of Iraq Newsletter (32), pp. 13-14.