Integrated Methods and Technologies for the Safeguarding of Parish Churches in Lunigiana

Metric and thematic documentation plays a fundamental role in devel￾oping any project based on knowledge of a historic building’s state. This paper illustrates an ongoing study of a series of religious buildings (“Pievi”) in Lunigiana, a region between Liguria and Tuscany, in Italy. In particular, the aim is to optimize analysis procedures for assessing the seismic vulnerability of these historic buildings. The Pievi, originally dating back to the 10th century, were the religious refer￾ence for large rural areas and present some recurring construction characteristics, although many of them have been significantly transformed over time. Besides, over the centuries, Lunigiana has been affected by numerous seismic events of varying intensity, some of which have left visible effects on these buildings. Relevant aspect in this study are i) the multi-disciplinarity, as expertise from the field of geomatics and structural engineering are applied jointly; ii) the multiscale approach, considering at the same time the Lunigiana region (creating a management information system) and individual churches, for which detailed 3D models are developed; iii) the multi-sensor application, combining different geomatic techniques to produce high-resolution 3D models. Simplified assessment methods, commonly used and described in the literature, were applied to evaluate seismic vulnerability. The role of documentation and recording is therefore discussed, proposing a qualitative assessment of its influence in defining indices.