Quel che resta dell’Urbs Picta. Riconoscimento e conservazione di murature in antico a vista a Venezia

Today the remains of the old venetian polychromy are made of brickwork, whose finishes are due to the brick processing techniques, to the way of laying elements and of shaping the mortar, as well as to those thin mimetic coverings, preluding the plasters of the Renaissance. Although it deals with well-refined surfaces, they are mostly altered and enclosed in more recent walls making them hardly recognizable, to the point they are often simply regarded as “plaster-lacking„ and covered up or somehow damaged. The point at issue is the need for a protocol of knowledge and operative guidelines to preserve these exposed masonries and this is a first methodolocial proposal to recognize them and then to describe their peculiar characters and needs. The research bases on the interaction between direct observations -such as dimensional-and-constructive analysis and stratigraphy- and some historical and technical studies, so as to situate the observed evidences in the context of Venice constructive history. Following the complete making sequence of brickwork (production, building and finishing processes) we can find the parameters to characterize the different features of the surfaces. While their particular condition and physical decay - they are mostly fragments - lead to reflect about the meaning of their conservation and the operative chances, requiring a continuous referring both to the detail and to the whole architecture, which any fragment is now organically built in.