Abstract

Recent seismic events that hit the Centre Italy have highlighted the high vulnerability of the historical and architectonical heritage that is the richness of the country, pointing out once again the difficulty of the assessment of monumental buildings such as churches or historical palaces, due to their uniqueness, the absence of a design, the limitation of invasive in situ tests, but the importance of the knowledge to understand the seismic behavior more than the static analysis under the gravitational loads. In the present paper the knowledge procedure is framed considering the case study of an important nineteenth century astronomical observatory, constructed in 1816-1819. The building, located in Naples, in the southern of Italy, classified by the Italian code as an area of medium seismic hazard, is analyzed by the use of integrated investigation activities such as coring, flat jack tests, georadar to obtain all the information due to the variability of the materials and the influence of previous alterations and repairs, that are data all necessary to develop a reliable model.