A Dispute on venetian Techniques of Foundation: Vincenzo Scamozzi in San Nicolo da Tolentino (1591-95)

Venetian builders had learned to cohabit with lagoon grounds adopting site-specific constructive procedures, showing a practice detached from vitruvian discipline. The architect Vincenzo Scamozzi is banned from the new San Nicole da Tolentino site in 1595 after the subsidence of a backdrop rock, charged with having refused a locally traditional mortar and having accepted reduced pilings. Supported by an unpublished survey, we would now move the attention on the foundation technique with depressed arches between pillars, proposed to the client by ensuring big saving. The workforce, operating according to tradition, make changes to the early solution and progressively weaken the structure. The uncertain direction of the building works begs the question as to whether there was an actual practice of such a foundation system in the city: maybe not specifically fitted for the Venetian site, but a logical and universal solution for every kind of low-resistant ground for Scamozzi.