Rural Heritage and Cultural Landscape: Guidelines for Sustainable Seismic Reinforcement of Emilian Historic Rural Building in Italy

Historic rural settlements are essential evidences of the Italian cultural heritage because they hand precious architectural, historical and environmental values. Despite its importance, this heritage is rarely protected by specific laws and a great part of these buildings are now abandoned and partially ruined, also as a consequence of the last century mechanized and intensive farming and the consequent lifestyle change. Moreover, the seismic events pose a serious threat to their preservation: indeed, despite they are located in an area - the Italian territory - with a very high seismic risk, often they don’t have any proper anti-seismic device able to prevent a serious damage, or collapse. In this work, the results of the research carried out on a significant number of historic rural buildings in the Emilian area, in Italy, are presented in order to draw up specific guidelines for their sustainable seismic reinforcement and conservation. Indeed, starting from the analysis of the peculiar features of the landscape and of the examined buildings, it's possible to recognize some recurring structures and shapes which identify as many rural architectural types, with similar structural behavior and seismic damage. Thanks to this similarity, it has been possible to set up some reliable guidelines of analysis and intervention which can constitute an easy and expeditious instrument for technicians and restorers in order to safeguard this valuable built heritage, too much neglected until now. The final aim is to evidence the extreme efficacy of a conservation strategy, which can constitute the first guarantee for a sustainable intervention on this precious cultural heritage.