Silvia Beltramo

HORTUS ARTIUM MEDIEVALIUM

John Ruskin’s ability to depict the architecture he had studied in depth during several trips to Italy, drawing preserved buildings together with others falling into disuse, provide us with a wide and exhaustive series of construction details and architectural elements regarding part of the Italian medieval heritage, especially of Northern and Central Italy. This paper presents part of an ongoing research on vaulted systems used in religious buildings between Romanesque and Gothic, focusing in particular on the wide phase of experimentation linked to the introduction of cross vaults.

The renewal policies concerning Medieval castles and noble houses transformed into in palaces and villas, also involve the subAlpine territories. In particular, at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th, the main noble dynastic families became carriers of new construction practices aimed at the renovation of existing structures and the opening of new construction sites for palaces and villas outside urban centres and in the countryside.

n the fifteenth century, north-western Italy witnessed a proliferation of settlements of Observant friars following the spread of mendicant friars in previous centuries. It was a vast and significant phenomenon, inspired by the renewed ‘Franciscan’ ideals that stemmed from the original ethical and social vision of this community. Western Italy has been overlooked by systematic research into the settlements of Observants.

Extensive literature has investigated the institutional tools with which municipal governments between the 12th and 13th centuries modelled the shape of public spaces and buildings. In the face of debated historical knowledge mainly focused on municipal buildings, studying civic towers seems to have been less detailed. The buildings considered here concern the western and eastern subalpine region: Cuneo, Fossano and Cherasco are new towns, Saluzzo and Pinerolo are towns related to the foremost noble dynasties, and Savigliano.

The topics of the conservation and maintenance of the heritage and building façades in the old town are covered in the Piano di manutenzione delle superfici di facciata del centro storico di Saluzzo which has just recently been complet-ed. This contribution presents the search results that were carried out about the Piano di manutenzione that offers technical indications and operational sug-gestions which can help to the planning of maintenance operations to protect the buildings.

Restorative and conservative operations of Cultural Heritage buildings involve the historical and objective knowledge of the context. Meaning the knowledge as a diachronic awareness of the history of buildings should help the safeguarding processes of heritage assets.