"The so-called ‘Palazzetto’ in the Palazzo di Venezia Complex: a small construction history among the huge transformation events of the Rome centre in the early twentieth century"

The paper illustrates the events relating to the translation of the so-called “Palazzetto di Venezia” from the site where it had been built in 1464 – at the behest of Pope Paolo II – to its current position not far from the previous one. The Viridarium, so the earliest palazzetto was called, had been conceived as the pope’s private garden, accessible directly from the piano nobile of his residence (the current palazzo Venezia) by means of a private passage and connected to the adjacent Capitoline hill by a raised walkway supported by arches. In the framework of the great urban transformations related to the construction of the monument dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele II (first monarch of the new unified Italy) on the northern slope of the Capitoline Hill, in the early twentieth century the Viridarium was demolished and rebuilt – according to the pre-existent building’s architectural language – in a position which still allowed the connection with Palazzo Venezia without interfering with the organisation of the new great plaza realised in place of the historical urban fabric. These consecutive building sites – demolition before, reconstruction then – lasted from 1908 to 1911 and involved a series of interventions on Palazzo Venezia’s masonry structure itself, aimed at strengthening the tower to which the Viridarium was previously adjacent and at modifying the wing of the palace which the new Palazzetto had to join with. Simultaneous to the overall transformations involving the palazzo Venezia were the events directly connected to the construction of the new Palazzetto. After a brief description of the general context, the core of the paper aims to clarify restrictions that the design had to face to as well as the choice of the construction techniques. These issues are here investigated through the analysis of the archive documents – partially preserved in Rome, partially in Wien (being the building complex at that time still property of the Austro-Hungarian government) – and information coming from the on-site investigations executed on the building body. What emerges is a quite precise picture that describes the building as the product of a contemporary constructive site which is still characterised by the persistence of a masonry conception of the building organism, implemented, however, using the materials of industrial production such us bricks and metal beams. The contemporary materials employed in the construction conflict with the building’s traditional appearance which is simulated by the decorative apparatus (coffered wooden ceilings and vaulted spaces) overlapped on the real structural framework. However, the building incorporates parts of the earliest Viridarium such as the stone elements of the cloister now clearly recognizable in the current Palazzetto’s portico and loggia

The Municipal Hall of Crevalcore. Remarks about history as a tool for restoration project

The paper illustrates the analysis carried out on the Municipal Hall of Crevalcore – a small town near Bologna damaged by the Emilia earthquake of May 2012. Following a methodology al- ready tested in several post-seismic situations, the study takes the constructional and evolutionary history of the building as the core of the knowledge process preliminary to the restoration project. Although such an approach is now also suggested in the Italian Guidelines for Seismic Vulnerability Assessment and Mitigation of Cultural Heritage (Min. IT, 2011), the relationship be- tween the historical research and the building weaknesses and, more importantly, between recognized weaknesses and restoration choices, does not seem to emerge clearly enough in the available literature. With reference to these preliminary remarks, the paper aims to show how the search for the causes of damage can be fruitfully supported by an historical analysis of the building, and how the acquired knowledge is crucial for the definition of minimal interventions, both conservational and effective from the point of view of safety. Analysis of the Municipal Hall of Crevalcore and, indeed, the whole historical centre, started in the first post-seismic phase, and the aim was to document and interpret the damage caused by the earthquake. The results of the preliminary expeditious survey show that the greatest damage was concentrated on the buildings which include porticos at street level (Carocci et al., 2013). In this way, a well-defined area made up of the two main streets in the centre was identified. The decision to carry out an in-depth analysis of the seismic behaviour of the Municipal Hall was motivated by its civic and institutional importance: it houses various public functions and is used by the public sector including the Municipal Police, commercial activities, and local associations on the ground floor, and local government offices and boardrooms on the upper floors. The damage present in the Municipal Hall is also representative of that identified more generally. The study was carried out following a methodology which the authors have often used in re- cent years in the analysis of buildings which were heavily damaged by the earthquake (Carocci, 2013). In this methodology the 'critical reading' of the building's configuration has a central role. It involves two areas of analysis: on the one hand, the survey of the building and, on the other, the historical research. These are both aimed at highlighting the historical and recent transformations which may have influenced the building's behaviour during the earthquake. In the case of the Municipal Hall of Crevalcore, the historical research produces a telling picture of the consequences of the constructional history on the identification of a building's weaknesses in the event of an earthquake

Survey, monitoring and reinforcement of a leaning tower after the 2016 Italy earthquakes. The towers of Palazzo Merli in Ascoli Piceno

The paper illustrates the studies carried out after the 2016 earthquakes to evaluate the stability of the towers belonging to Palazzo Merli in Ascoli Piceno and the reinforcement project that arose from them. The studies were based on different approaches. Advanced techniques for survey and monitoring were used to get a reliable measurement of the real overall geometry of the towers and to check by real-time remote monitoring the possible progression of their tilting. Traditional methods of direct analysis and historical research provided a sound support for the safety assessment, allowing to found the modeling choices on consistent physical data and to assess, experimentally, the resistance of towers to historical earthquake