Dalla conservazione dei materiali alla conoscenza del costruito, tra «scienze della natura» e «scienze storiche»

The role of scientific methods in the knowledge and in the restauration of works of art animated the European debate in the Thirties. These topics found a significant echo in Florence, thanks to Giovanni Poggi and Ugo Procacci. Piero Sanpaolesi, who joined the Florentine Superintendency in 1932, has often been credited with extending that approach to architecture. In reality he developed an already century-old research field, the consolidation of stone, the results of which are controversial. In the 1970s, faced with numerous restorations that destroyed the baroque additions and reproposed an incredible Middle Ages, it nevertheless contributed to giving life to new, more advanced practices. Later, only global archeology has introduced a different awareness of the built environment as historic source, and renewed also the role of the natural sciences, removing them from tasks of mere technological transfer.