Post-earthquake diagnostic investigation of a historic masonry tower

The paper describes the methodology applied to assess the state of preservation of the tallest historictower in Mantua, the Gabbia Tower, after the Italian earthquakes of May 2012. An extensive experi-mental programme − including geometric survey, visual inspections, ambient vibration tests, sonic andflat-jack tests − has been planned and carried out to support the future preservation actions of the tower.The paper focuses especially on the outcomes of on-site survey and dynamic tests and highlights theeffectiveness of integrating the information obtained from these tests to assess the structural conditionand seismic vulnerability of the tower. The adopted experimental methodology, generally suitable as aprompt diagnostic procedure, successfully detected the local vulnerabilities as well as the overall stateof preservation of the tower and addressed the subsequent monitoring phase.