Restoration Anamnesis As A Knowledge Tool. The Case Study of St Nicholas’ Basilica In Bari.

G. De Angelis d’Ossat stated that the restoration of Monuments cannot be considered as a Cultural product of modern civilisation alone, but must be understood as a phenomenon that can be traced back to the continuous architectural interventions that have taken place throughout the ages. Before any conservation work is carried out, it is necessary to study the building both from the point of view of architectural design and conservation state, and in relation to the material-constructive events that have marked its existence. The constructive reading of historical architecture, through an in-depth analysis of the published and unpublished sources, interwoven with the studies of physical consistency, can represent a precious cognitive tool to acquire all that fundamental information that constitutes the basis of a conscious restoration intervention. The possibility of consulting and using the archive documents and the historical data they contain, is a guarantee of a deeper knowledge and anamnesis of the Monument and its historical path. The interpretation of documentary memories is therefore configured as a concrete cognitive tool and, consequently, a planning tool for restoration work, as it allows us to relive and reread the events on the artefact, to know the construction technique and the materials used in the historical work. The key is to understand restoration history as a model of knowledge and a methodology of initial diagnosis to be carried out through history. This paper is conceived as a metaphor of a journey through time and dusty documents that unveils the historical truth of one of the most important Romanesque monuments in southern Italy, the St Nicholas’ Basilica in Bari, recounting the interventions that have modified its architectural consistency and decorative apparatuses, in order to arrive at that cognitive basis, the so-called anamnesis, that critically and consciously guides future conservation interventions.