Renders technology in Italian Renaissance. The case of the Lucchesian Villas.

Scientific investigations on building materials are necessary for a correct and effective restoration of historical buildings, but they could be very expensive and long. Five years ago, at the beginning of this investigation, this observation was the starting point of the research project (Bolondi 2009). Preliminary knowledge of the chemical, physical and petrographic properties of ancient building materials is essential in order to choose or create the most compatible restoration materials to be used. Unfortunately, every construction to be restored is often considered as a unique case and data coming from (former) researches on buildings possessing similar characteristics are not available. Through the historical and architectural analysis of the territory around the building to be restored, however, it is frequently possible to find several constructions similar to it in many aspects: time of construction, architectural style, materials used, etc. In the past, several groups of constructions were built in some areas (around the historical centers, along pilgrimage routes, etc.) in the same periods. Every group of building has common characters in functions, architectural structure and building technology and can be defined as a system of cultural heritage. All the buildings belonging to a system are part of a more complex and structured situation, they are a piece of a puzzle that is not complete without all of them. To consider every building not just as a single case study, but as part of a bigger and structured system, allows to carry out investigations sharing research tasks and procedures and also results and experience. Unfortunately, no research project had ever been carried out on the basis of this assumption, and a completely new approach had to be developed. Several questions arose from this assumption, they all needed to be solved and this research was meant to answer them: is it actually possible to demonstrate that - even in the cultural heritage field- ‘unity is strength’ ? Which kind of guideline should be applied to the case-studies ? Which building material should be considered first ? What could be the ideal system of cultural heritage we could start from ? All these questions started to be answered during a short research on the gardens of the Villas around Lucca (Bolondi 2008), a city in the north of Tuscany (Italy).