Materials and color_the restoration of medicean farm in the park of cascine di tavola (Prato, Tuscany)

The area of the Cascine of Tavola and the Medicean Villa of Poggio a Caiano in Prato (Tuscany) are the two poles of a great and almost visionary territorial arrangement by Lorenzo il Magnifico. The project was not completely realized, but it decided for centuries the fate of this area. The stately home and the farm represent the dual character of the organization of the territory, always in equilibrium between agricultural activities and leisure activities, between natural and built environments according the matrix of the Tuscan agricultural landscape. Among the objectives that today are set to stem the dissolution of the material of the Cascina, there is the revival of the great potential for rehabilitation and reuse able to ensure adequate preservation of the noble Renaissance architecture and all its additions from the 16th-17th centuries until to those of the early twentieth century.After more than five centuries, the current challenge is realize the dream of Lorenzo dei Medici. There are all the conditions to make the park not only a pole of attraction for its priceless architectural and artistic values, but also the place of agricultural excellence and a further reason of attraction from the point of view of tourism. This paper presents a research activity on the material and chromatic characterization of a part of the Cascine complex, the Medicean Farm, abandoned for many years and affects by numerous and different degradation phenomena. The results include strictly conservative interventions, alternated with others of partial remaking with integration of lost materials, also aiming at the material and chromatic reorganization of the whole complex.