ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The environmental monitoring system apparently appears to be an easy tool, but it hides some drawbacks such as high purchase and maintenance costs. This implies that the use of technologies to monitor cultural heritage is somewhat limited to analyze sites where the degradation conditions are of particular relevance. With this in mind, the aim of such a research activity is to compare two monitoring systems in relation with the decay problems affecting the paintings of the crypt of St. Francesco d’Assisi in Irsina (Basilicata, Southern Italy). The first system is a low-cost Arduino wireless platform based on opensource hardware and user friendly software. The second monitoring equipment is a standard commercial product. The basic idea of such a comparison is to attempt to reduce greatly the costs as well as significantly increase the applicability of long-term monitoring systems on a large scale.
