The refurbishment of the Basilicata constructive historical models through the refurbishment of the medieval historic centre of Brienza (PZ, Italy)

There are areas in Italy, not so fortunate from a literary, historical and economic point of view, that have seen their history fade away. This is what happened to Basilicata, “where Christ never went” (Levi C., 1945), the inner part of Southern Italy – the heart (with Puglia) of Frederick II of Swabia’s empire, an es-sential part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, conquered and annexed by the Savoy monarchy in 1860 thanks to Garibaldi – whose economy, and partly history, was harmed for the benefit of the economy and the valorization of the history of the winners. Among the effects of all this, the lack, at least up to 25 years ago, of university institutions focusing on the history and the future of the territory. Since 1988 a lot of research, now finally published, has been carried out with the aim both of defining the characteris-tics of the historical building models and refurbishing their “matter and meaning” (Marconi P., 2003). This paper reports the research carried out on the late-medieval historic centre of Brienza, overlooked by the XI-century Castle, where some blocks of abandoned houses have been investigated, their types and construction models have been catalogued and the possibility of refurbishing them has been discussed from a static and technological point of view. All this results in a number of interesting acquisitions, such as those on the masonry constructive systems (opera), the wooden roofs and floors with round beams and non-squared boards, the constructive typologies of single and double frame roofs with tiles on bat-tens, the “opus craticium” for partitions and wooden windows and doors. We have proved that it is possible to make these buildings earthquake-resistant complying with the latest regulations on energy demand and environmental sustainability, thus giving them a new future. All this is possible through the application of non-invasive and retrofittable devices of masonry strengthen-ing, the use of trusses made of modified laminated turkey oak wood placed in the plane of the floors, the use of internal insulation as well as insulating plasters.