Safety of the Architectural Heritage: Structural Assessment of the Zuccaro’s Tower in Mantua

Abstract

The paper focuses on the experimental procedures adopted for assessing the structural condition of the Zuccaro’s Tower situated in Mantua. A research program was planned and included historic and documentary research, direct survey and dynamic tests in operational conditions. The paper reports the outcomes of a wide multi-disciplinary research and underlines the strategic importance of direct visual survey (indicating the regions affected by major discontinuities) and dynamic tests (revealing anomalous warping distortion of the tower’s cross-sections) in the preliminary assessment of the ancient structure.