Governare l’emergenza progettando la cura, tra conservazione materiale e fruizione in sicurezza. Approcci predittivi per Palazzo Pitti a Firenze

The paper presents the first results of a multidisciplinary research aimed at supporting a paradigm shift in the management of decay processes affecting the stone façades of the Pitti Palace in Florence, passing from emergency interventions to continuous care. The research deals with the issue of quality in heritage preservation by focusing on the planning of mid-to-long term activities; it assumes a predictive approach and stresses the circularity of knowledge over the lifespan of conservation works. The goal is to develop preventive conservation and management strategies to ensure the material consistency of the heritage asset and the safe public fruition of its outdoor spaces threatened by detachments and falling stone fragments. The study is part of an Institutional Agreement signed in January 2023 between the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Department of Construction, Civil Engineering and Architecture of the Università Politecnica delle Marche, and benefits from the long-standing collaboration with the Lab of Stone Materials and Applied Geology, Environment and Landscape (DST-LAM) of the University of Florence. The scientific activities are targeted at enabling an experimental knowledge-based tool for assessing the risk of detachment and setting priorities in conservation. The knowledge areas include the results of the DST-LAM diagnostic analysis, which also serve to validate the proposed methodology, as well as data from historical-critical research, especially impacts of previous restorations, and the state of conservation of stone façades. The correlation between these different levels of knowledge through data analysis techniques provides a first predictive model to manage the complexity of this heritage; the structuring and meta-dating of the knowledge ‘input’ and ‘output’ for an operational and shareable database are also among the results to be improved and tested.