Re-employed, transformed or preserved. the wooden beam floors in Palazzo Magio Grasselli in Cremona

The construction of vaults in the main aristocratic palaces in Cremona is well documented starting from the XVI century. A good availability of woods, even up to the Middle Ages, allowed making sufficiently resistant and long beams for large wooden floors. During the XVIIth century the reduction of wood availability, the contemporary changes in lifestyles and the consequent housing models have gradually reduced the use of wooden floors secondary rooms, roofs or rooms with precarious static conditions. The wooden floors of Palazzo Magio Grasselli, like all the other structures and architectural finishes, have helped to clarify the construction phases of the building: it was reformed in the second half of the Seventeenth century, at the behest of Camillo Magio - with architect Francesco Pescaroli - modifying and partially demolishing pre-existing medieval domus, adapting them to the comforts of a modern residence. The inner wing, completed between 1760's and 1772 by the Marquis Camillo II Magio and his wife Teresa Crivelli, discloses an interesting succession of wooden beam floors, partially re-employed from more ancient structures. The diagnostic investigations, although oriented to verify materials, state of decay and the static behaviour of the wooden beam floors, have allowed to identify the different types, adaptations, finishes and peculiar construction techniques: in particular, the floors along the ground floor, despite numerous reforms and replacements, still retain the eighteenth-century structures, starting from the imposing ceiling of the room number 1.38, a large room measuring 8.61x11.06 ml. Through the comparison of surveys, historical data and diagnostic investigations, the paper aims to highlight the succession of transformations and implementations of the wooden floors of Palazzo Magio Grasselli in Cremona: the research will allow, during the restoration work, to reduce consolidation interventions to a minimum.