Author(s)

S. Caprili, F. Mangini, W. Salvatore

Abstract

Recent earthquakes in Italian regions evidenced the high vulnerability of historical masonry of existing buildings: severe damages were revealed in structural and non-structural elements with the ensuing loss of lives and of significant examples of the Italian architectural tradition, often requiring a strong financial commitment to take them back to their former glory. The majority of Italian building’s heritage is made up of masonry constructions with high architectural, historical and monumental impact, enlarged over the centuries without an organized scheme and consequently characterized by structural and non-structural problems often increased by the lack of accurate maintenance. The Italian Standards for Constructions and the guidelines provided by the Ministry for Infrastructures for the evaluation and reduction of seismic risk on historical heritage pays a lot of attention to the vulnerability analysis of existing buildings, necessary for the development of a project to provide a high level of structural static and seismic safety without deleting the original nature of the building. In the present paper, the structural analyses of two historical masonry buildings, Palazzo La Sapienza in Pisa and Palazzo Ducale in Massa are presented.

Keywords

cultural heritage, masonry buildings, vulnerability assessment, local collapse mechanisms, global behaviour