Seismic Assessment of the Palace of Priors in Perugia

Abstract

The seismic assessment of historical structures necessitates considering conservation and safety objectives as well as the possible presence of cultural heritage assets. To this end, this paper emphasises the results of a seismic evaluation procedure carried out by the authors on an illustrative case of study, the Palace of Priors in Perugia, that in addition to being one of the most important local governor buildings built, during the High Middle Ages, by Italian communes of Central Italy, it is characterized by the presence of a lot of artistic assets as well. Within this context, strong emphasis was placed on the seismic risk assessment of the structure carried out with reference to the Italian guidelines for heritage protection and conservation. More specifically, the paper investigates and critically discusses the seismic response of the building by using 3 different types of evaluation: territorial level analysis (LV1), local level analysis (LV2) and global level analysis (LV3).