Inventory, preservation and valorization of historic roads in Lombardy Region (Italy). Current policies and future plans

Abstract

The historic trails form a very interesting architectonic and cultural linear system: not only the traces, but also the road works (walls, bridges, tunnels, drain wells, etc.), the connected buildings (churches, chapels, fortifications, custom-houses, mills, mines, etc.) rose out of ancient religious, military, commercial or industrial functions with a relationship between villages, towns, landscapes. Leaving out the more ancient trails (roman and medieval roads) with a lot of archaeological importance, there are in Italy many XVIII–XIX century roads now transformed or abandoned and decayed. These could be used now as trekking, cultural and museal resources, but it is necessary to preserve and conserve this heritage with specific inventories, analysis and restoration projects. The paper illustrates some recent studies and plans with guidelines for evaluating, preserving, rehabilitating, restoring and managing the Lombardy historic system trail. Particularly the goals of this paper are to: Describe the historic roads inventory that the Politecnico of Milan, connected with Lombardy Region Forestry Agency, made, comparing XIX century military maps with current maps to understand the permanence of the itineraries. Present the analysis and survey work made in some Lombardy areas to check the conservation levels of the inventoried roads and the architectural and landscape features connected to them. Show some detailed surveys of historic road segments analyzing materials, building techniques, decay problems and transformations to define conservation and rehabilitation treatments. Explain the Lombardy historic roads GIS set to organize and join all the gathered and surveyed data and to manage them in the future.