Seismic strengthening criteria and techniques in the Regno di Napoli during the eighteenth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Borbone Regno di Napoli, including Southern Italy, was struck by several earthquakes during the eighteenth century, some of high magnitude. The Borbone technicians tried to counterpose seismic measures aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the constructions under threat from earthquakes. Neither the seventeenth century nor the first years of the eighteenth century emphasized a significant seismic engineering development. In general, the reconstruction activity did not highlight, in the analysed historical chronicles, any technical device concerned with buildings’ seismic retrofittings. However, some constructions, executed or strengthened after the 1732 quake that hit Naples, presented timber elements embedded in the masonry, with the main intention of bonding the orthogonal panels of the building and counteracting the wall collapsing. The earthquakes sequence that struck the Calabria region in 1783 marked a resolved trend inversion characterized by interventions, as well as strengthening interventions, aimed at improving building responses during an earthquake. The Borbone government, showing a deep and advanced knowledge about the seismic engineering principles, imposed a code for earthquake-resistant constructions that regulated, beside new buildings execution, repair interventions for damaged buildings.