The Abbot’s House in St. Giovanni in Persiceto: Cognitive surveys and operative matters for the preservation of a «Fossil-building»

Abstract

The Abbot’s House in St. Giovanni in Persiceto (Bologna) is a «fossil-building», one of the few surviving timber-framed buildings in Italy, probably the seat of the Abbot of the monastery of Nonantola. It is very interesting because of its rarity, age, building type and the presence of an almost millenarian stratigraphy. The Abbot’s House has been subjected to a slow but continuous transformation process – through a gradual replacement of wooden elements by masonry – modifying its storehouse function for a prevalently residential one.

Restoration works in the 1960s deeply modified the structural frame and renewed the external surfaces, transforming thus the old image of the building and making difficult its archaeological analysis. This circumstance makes to think about the relationship between stratigraphic legibility and preservation of material authenticity. Reliability of stratigraphic instrument becomes reduced in such a modified building, being required a different use of stratigraphy by adapting its codes and modes to the study case.

The adaptation to different recording conditions gives stratigraphy a different and more articulated role – if it is organically included in the preservation project – and stratigraphic legibility may become a precious alteration index and a technical and cultural project criterion. It becomes a control of transformations, leading to the idea of a minimal intervention and respect toward the fragmentary survivals of past times and of their stratigraphic legibility.