The Church of Santo Stefano in Monselice (Padua). Construction, Transformation, Damage and Structural Reinforcement

This study focuses on the Church of Santo Stefano (PD), once the centre of a large monas-tery complex, then closed for worship at the beginning of the 19th century, and now in a pre-carious state of preservation. The building shows significant cracked boards. After years of neglect, the municipality of Monselice, which owns the property, is undertaking the restora-tion of the building as part of a new “music district”. By analysing the indications of recent studies, the research focuses on how knowledge of the building's construction phases impacts the understanding of the structural vulnerability and of the kinematics involved in order to propose well-informed designs for its structural strengthening. First, together with the survey of the damaged materials and the construction techniques, the study used archaeological tools to identify the main phases of this highly stratified construction: from an original church with a single nave to the most recent trans-formations, which include demolition of part of the ancient monastery. The data collected showed multiple relationships with the instability observed: e.g., the re-cent enlargement of the western entryway triggered deformation and damage to the new wooden lintel and caused the masonry above to slide downward. Lastly, the identification of the construction phases helped to point out macro-elements and establish simplified models to develop hypotheses about the church's structural behaviour. This identification allowed for a diachronic reading of the damage mechanisms and their evolution according to the progression of the building’s phases and will guide further inves-tigation (e.g. into the structural connections) to indicate awareness-strengthening interven-tions.