ABSTRACT
A major aspect characterizing this study area consists in the widespread environmental vulnerability (geological and waterway instability), as well as the high seismic hazard, one of the highest in Italy. This extreme condition has fostered the development of a building modality characterized by the predominant use of local materials and building traditions proven by long use, according to generally accepted “rules of good practice”. The historical centres of the area under study, perched on the limestone rocks of the Apennines, experienced, in the past, poor life conditions and were kept out, until recently, of the innovations characterizing some of the surrounding areas; all the same, they found the way to deal with these extreme conditions, by optimizing the available materials and resources, developing really effective anti-seismic solutions, easy to maintain. Perhaps, these solutions were at times unconventional, but often effective with some local ingenious proposals; they have been properly defined “anomalies that protect” (Ferrigni 1989).
