Assessment of the seismic risk of the museum of Casa Vasari in Arezzo (Italy)

This paper discusses the seismic risk of the museum of Casa Vasari in Arezzo (Italy), a three-storey masonry building that was the house of the Renaissance architect and painter Giorgio Vasari. To analyse the seismic risk, an interdisciplinary approach was employed based on the provision of the Italian “Guidelines for the assessment and mitigation of the seismic risk of the cultural heritage”. The Guidelines identify a methodology of analysis based on three different levels of evaluation (LV1, analysis at territorial level; LV2, local analysis and LV3, global analysis), according to an increasing level of knowledge. A detailed and careful knowledge process, which included experimental in situ investigations, allowed to characterise the geometric and mechanical parameters required to perform a reliable structural assessment. The seismic assessment of the museum, that represents a typology of masonry building very diffused in the Italian territory, was performed analysing both local mechanisms and global behaviour assuming different structural configurations (according to the effectiveness of connections between the structural elements as observed during the knowledge process). Through the discussion of an emblematic case study, this paper discusses the process of knowledge and the analyses performed to assess the seismic risk of an historical masonry building.