Heritage and intervention in existing buildings of italian reinassance: three exemplary cases

Abstract

This research contributes on the theme of intervention in existing buildings. It examines this practice in the Italian Renaissance, when the notion of patrimony was configured, as an effect of the humanist’s reverence for classical antiquity; the "unintentional" monuments, according to the classification of Riegl. The reflection is developed through the analysis of three exemplary cases, supported by a concise bibliographical review. The first examines the small intervention of Michelangelo at the base of the Palazzo Medici, held in 1517, when he inserts the so-called inginocchiati windows or kneeling. The second examines the construction of the Palazzo Savelli-Orsini on the ruins of Teatro di Marcello by Peruzzi in the 1520s, as well as other layers of intervention: one from the Mussolini period, where the diradamento edilizio took place; another of modern lineage, between 1962 and 1964, with the author Quaroni acting similarly to Scarpa. And the third deals with the conversion of Diocletian's Thermal in Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, conceived by Michelangelo in 1561: undoubtedly, the actuality of the economy of means used would be one of his last and greatest lessons.