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La conservazione preventiva degli edifici storici e dei beni custoditi al loro interno rappresenta una sfida ad oggi condivisa a livello internazionale. Tale conservazione dipende da numerose variabili, tra le quali il microclima indoor gioca un ruolo decisivo. Il fine di questa tesi è verificare come lo studio del microclima indoor, supportato dalla simulazione virtuale e dalla conoscenza storica delle evoluzioni dell’edificio stesso (legate a modifiche impiantistiche; architettoniche; d’uso; ecc., nel corso degli anni), costituiscano una base conoscitiva fondamentale, da cui architetti e restauratori possono partire per definire strategie specifiche, volte alla conservazione preventiva del Patrimonio. Per fare questo, l’autore presenta le indagini svolte per tre casi-studio: la Sala 33 della Reggia di Venaria Reale, in provincia di Torino, Italia; la Biblioteca Generale Storica dell’Università di Salamanca, in Spagna; il Portico della Gloria, nartece della Cattedrale di Santiago de Compostela, in Spagna. La metodologia definita e adottata per l’analisi e l’interpretazione dei dati di ciascun caso-studio ha previsto la comprensione e la messa in relazione tra: scelte costruttive; vicende evolutive delle singole architetture; fattori che ne determinano il microclima, letti (o ipotizzati) nelle relative modifiche diacroniche; degrado delle architetture e dei beni che sono custoditi in esse. Infine, uno degli esiti più innovativi della ricerca è stata la definizione di due indici di rischio: sono stati infatti definiti due nuovi indici (Heritage Microclimate Risk -HMR- e Predicted Risk of Damage -PRD-) legati al microclima degli edifici che ospitano beni e manufatti che costituiscono il patrimonio storico artistico e culturale. Tali indici sono stati definiti tenendo conto di tutte le variabili da cui il microclima dipende e dei fattori che ne determinano l’evolversi nel tempo e nello spazio., The conservation and safeguarding of historic buildings, and of everything that is housed within them, represents a challenge whose value is currently shared at a world level, and it depends on several variables, with the microclimate playing a decisive role among them. This thesis is aimed to illustrate how the study of the indoor microclimate, supported by the virtual simulation and by the knowledge of the historical evolutions of the building (managerial, usage and architectonical changes over the years), represents a preventive practice which allows to evaluate and predict the interactions between objects and environment. To do that the author presents three case-studies: room 33 in the Palace of Venaria Reale, in Turin, Italy; the Historical Library of the University of Salamanca, in Spain; the Portico of Glory, in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. Moreover, for at least two decades, scientific literature in the field of preventive conservation, has been reporting experiences on individual case-studies relative to the study of indoor microclimate and criteria for the conservation of Cultural Heritage, in this regard, standards have also been enacted. Nevertheless, in the author view, the research involves stand-alone case-studies that are not comparable among one another, in particular about the risk assessment of the place where the assets are located and/or the damage that these assets may undergo as a result of the microclimate of their environment. For this reason, this contribution intends to present two risk indices related to the indoor microclimate: Heritage Microclimate Risk index, which defines the level of risk to which an indoor room is exposed, compared to maximum and minimum values defined according to standards or based on the historical microclimate; and Predicted Risk of Damage (PRD) index, which evaluate the risk of damage to which a specific material/object is exposed.

This study aims to verify the possibility to extend to the construction industry, the strategies implemented in order to monitor an historic building’s mircroclimate, Villa Barbaro to be specific, built in Maser between 1554 and 1560 by the architect Andrea Palladio. Data obtained from the monitoring enabled to proceed with the virtual modelling necessary to control the physic behaviour of the indoor microclimate through thermo/fluid-dynamic simulations, allowing the elaboration of some hypothesis, finalized to increase the level of comfort for the visitors and guarantee the conservation of the building and the goods guarded inside. The methodology adopted is extremely simple and not expensive, both in terms of purchase and positioning of the probes or gathering and managing data; therefore it is possible to imagine a wide extension of the method. All these information permit to forecast the percentage of microclimatic risk and to evaluate the level of comfort perceived by visitors. Together with monitoring, an oriented reading of “The Four Books of Architecture” has been done, in order to find the passages in which Andrea Palladio provides indications and suggestions that could somehow have a “microclimatic value”. The strength of the proposed methodology lies in the possibility to pre-emptively define, throughout a virtual building model, which actions could aid the preservation of the good, avoiding the risk component that would be taken working on the original.

This paper aims to illustrate and give an interpretation of the results emerged from a pilot activity developed within the ROCK project, by the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna, Alma Mater Studiorum. Through this activity, we studied the indoor microclimate of the University Library of Bologna (BUB), in the Archive and in the Lecture Hall, with the aim to detect how these spaces are affected by the influence of factors such as the outdoor climate and the cooling and heating systems. Moreover, the paper presents the customisation of the probes’ alert system and of the probes itself, used for a one-year monitoring campaign started on the 20th of December 2018. In addition, we calculated the Heritage Microclimate Risk index, to verify the level of risk to which the heritage in the Library is exposed due to the indoor microclimate, and the Predicted Risk of Damage index, that evaluate the more specific risks of damage to which precise objects hosted in there are exposed. Therefore, this paper enriches the research field of Historic Indoor Microclimate, started in 2013, which concerns issues as preventive conservation and restoration in historic buildings. The new insights about the Bologna University Library facilitate the possibility to draw up a specific ‘Indoor Microclimate Management Protocol (IMMP)’ aimed at the preventive conservation of manuscripts and books in historical libraries.

Environmental monitoring represents a key step for restaurateurs to follow who strive to ensure the preservation of buildings and artifacts while allowing for people&rsquo, s thermal comfort. This paper describes the possibilities and main issues arising from the study of indoor microclimates. The presented case study focuses on the monitoring data analysis for two rooms of the Realm of Venaria Reale, in Turin. The adopted methodology provides for the gathering of knowledge about the history, the geometry, and the change of use in the course of the lifetime of the building. This information allows us to construct a virtual model of the building, through which it is possible to evaluate the past and present and to hypothesize future scenarios regarding the indoor environmental conditions. Moreover, this paper presents a specific index, namely the Heritage Microclimate Risk (HMR), which enables us to evaluate the risk level to which the artifacts kept within historic buildings are exposed. With that database of information, we can preemptively define which actions (managerial and structural) would need to be taken for the preservation of the artifacts and the building itself, avoiding the possible risk component taken by working on the real building.