Timber Roof Structures in Medieval Churches in Cremona. The Case of the Church of San Francesco

In the city of Cremona, a vast heritage of medieval religious architecture is still preserved, despite extensive restorations and numerous demolitions prompted by the Habsburg suppressions until the postwar period. A recent archaeometric investigation has initiated surveys and analyses of Cremonese timber roofs, with particular reference to those from the medieval and modern periods, identifying construction practices, technologies, and indirect information on the production and transportation of timber. The case of the church of San Francesco, founded at the end of the thirteenth century in an outlying area of the medieval city, has revealed the presence of remains of the roof structures thought to have been lost during the renovation and adaptation works of 1925/1926: the ancient thirteenth-century trusses were dismantled, and their pieces were reused as purlins or wall plates, serving as supports for the new larch wood trusses with metal tie rods. Prior to the imminent restoration work, the survey of the pieces, patiently reassembled on paper like in a jigsaw puzzle, has allowed us to reconstruct the typological scheme of the roof structure and identify the positions of the trusses thanks to the traces preserved on the walls. Comparison with other local case studies has confirmed the construction practices and, at the same time, has allowed us to identify the unique features of the Franciscan building, in the hope that these pieces will be protected and studied in greater depth during the upcoming restoration intervention.