Endoscopic Analysis Supporting Issues of Historic Stratigraphic Investigations: the Case History of Saint Domenico Monastery in Naples-Italy

摘要

The Saint Domenico Maggiore Monastery in Napoli-Italy is largest monumental complex of city and its constructive history, with its articulated stratigraphy and its valuable artistic heritage, renders it one of most relevant monumental site of this great historical city. In occasion of a long a difficult intervention or conservative restoration, started ten years ago and yet to conclude, the monument was object of a different kind of activities aimed to its knowledge, consisting above all in analysis of historical and stratigraphic kind, but also diagnostic investigations. In some cases these two categories of analysis were integrated or superposed, especially to understand really complicated issues. The Saint Domenico Maggiore Monastery, constructed on a first little chapel realized in VIII century, had a first great intervention of enlarging in XI century, but it is possible to recognize at least nine great transforming phases, realized both for functional needs and after severe earthquakes. In this context this contribution regards a specific experience, which can evidence how diagnostic investigation, in this specific case endoscopies, were able to represent an element of implementation of technic and constructive knowledge and how these information were useful both to help stratigraphic and historical comprehension of a most complicated part of monastery, the Saint Domenico's cloister and its large staircase. In fact capability to verify directly technological characteristics of every masonry pilaster of cloister (tufa, bricks, tufa and bricks) with an easy, but micro-invasive investigation, permitted to correlate different arms of cloister to different constructive phases, giving elements useful in phase of numerical evaluation of seismic performance of this structural part in comparison with buildings of monastery distributed around the Saint Domenico's cloister, with a consequent significant reduction of restorative project. This case history, simple in its content, but interesting in terms of strategy and approach, is inspired by a cultural orientation, based on interdisciplinary, permitting a holistic vision, born through interconnection of some point of views, able to reduce evaluation mistakes and consequently to improve and verify every project choice.