Resimus: A research project on the seismic vulnerability of museums’ collections

The art goods represent a priceless asset of the cultural and artistic identity of communities. Nevertheless, the seismic performance of museums’ content is only rarely checked, despite the several losses occurred in the last earthquakes (Emilia Region 2012, Aquila 2009, Central Italy 2016). As a consequence, risk mitigation and management have been paying an increasing attention to artistic and cultural goods. Such artifacts, despite presenting an intrinsic vulnerability - due to their irregular shape, slenderness, fragility - rarely are adequately protected from earthquakes. The research project “RESIMUS” has developed in this scenario, and it focuses on the seismic vulnerability of the collections exposed in the Museum of Bargello in Florence. A special attention is paid to the role played by the staging on the seismic performance of the artifacts. The Museum of Bargello represents a privileged case-study, both for the importance and the value of its collections and for their staging variety. The staging adopted in the Museum, indeed, presents different types, materials, ages and dynamic properties, representing a special example of site-specific outfitting. The research project has involved different scientists and disciplines, providing results which concern the laser-scanner survey of the objects, their classification according to the main mechanisms of collapse, the site-specific seismic input and the finite element modeling of some case-studies.