Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor,

the authors have worked on the comparison of three different methods for obtaining the thickness of very thing gold leaves, and apply their techniques to historic samples. The overall work certainly belongs into this journal and I recommend publication.

I would like to recommend a few points to be improved in the manuscript:

- p4: what is the size of the proton beam at the target?

- p4: the authors should briefly discuss the limit of the thin-target hypothesis, i.e. give an estimate on the thickness from which the assumption would not hold any more.

-p7, fig. 9: the slight deviation from a 1:1 correlation seems systematic, with the ratio being slightly above 1 for thicknesses below 400nm, and above 1.0 afterwards. Maybe the authors could comment on this - maybe it has to do with the above mentioned limit of the thin-target hypothesis.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have read with pleasure the manuscript which I found of real interest to both scientific achievement and the history of Renascence culture.

Excepting some recommendations concerning the accuracy of XRF and PIXE determinations, I have no more remarks.

I would ask the authors to consider my remarks which can be found in the attached adnotated manuscript.

Under these considerations, I would recommend the manuscript to be accepted after minor to moderate revisons.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled " Practice and Rules of Genoese XVI century Gilding: Exploring Gold Leaf Thickness and Caratage through X-ray and Ion Beam Techniques" is worthy of publication in a prestigious journal such as Heritage.

Although the manuscript presents classic archaeometric analysis methods, the analyzed items represent new data on unique historical materials. This alone is enough to give the manuscript an original aspect of the research.

However, some improvements are needed to reach a final acceptance, according to my opinion:

1. The section regarding the analytical methods needs to be revised and improved, particularly the description of each method's setup (resolution, list of detectable elements, and so on).

2.  Another shortcoming of the manuscript is the wide use of Latin terms. I suggest reviewing the manuscript and adding a short description in English of the meaning of the Latin words used. The manuscript will surely improve overall comprehension.  

The conclusion of the manuscript is coherent with the initial aim of the research. 

According to what I wrote before, minor revisions are needed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are no comments. 

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf