The research described in this paper shows the results of preliminary analyses carried out on an artwork housed in a museum complex. A three-dimensional model of the sculpture, resulting from a laser scanner survey, has been analysed to understand its current state and seismic response, from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. The results highlight the great advantages resulting from integration of traditional and novel procedures in the field of conservation of artistic assets.

The article proposes the results of a research aimed at supporting a conservation work and enhancement of a monumental cult building of the Byzantine era, the abbey of Santa Maria del Pàtire, located in the municipality of Rossano (CS - Italy) one of the most interesting Byzantine architectures in Calabria. The research started with a historical survey and an identification of the relevant components of the abbey. The heart of the research is the characterization of the church constitutive materials for conservative purposes, in a cultural perspective of prevention of potential degradation forms. To this end, a diagnostic plan was developed, articulated in coordinated phases that include both the cognitive analysis of the environmental context and the cognitive analysis of the artefact through a specific anamnesis and a photographic dossier. The meaning of the methodological approach in the preventive analyses is therefore emphasized that carefully and specific techniques must be used and may be useful for guiding the most suitable technical inputs or suggesting solutions for effective conservative action.

Sedimentary rocks are among the most used in historical buildings, as they are more readily available in the area and because they are also more easily extractable, in virtue in general of lower mechanical resistance. Among these the most used are limestones and sandstones. The former are represented by a remarkable variety of lithologies, with highly variable characteristics, passing from the almost pure, massive and not very porous limestones, to those with a variable arenaceous-clayey component which instead are characterized by a low compactness and consequent high porosity (up to 35%). In this study the calcarenites present in two geographic sectors of Sardinia are dealt with, by comparing them with similar showers present in other territorial contexts of the Mediterranean. The mineralogical-petrographic analyzes by optical microscope and XRD analysis of the Pietra Cantone limestone of Cagliari (south Sardinia) show, besides calcite, the presence of phyllosilicates and various other accessory minerals. SEM analyses show a very weak physical-mechanical microstructure.

This paper documents the chemical, mineralogical and petrographic characteristics, and some physical properties of the black limestones that were exploited in the Middle Ages for building the Pisa's monumental architecture. The black limestones are worthy of particular importance in the medieval Pisa's constructions because they are used to build important buildings (S. Maria Assunta Cathedral, Leaning Tower, Baptistery and several other city churches) and, in particular, the typical black layers that characterize the Pisan architecture are almost always made with these stones. The main local black limestones used as building stones in Pisa belong to the Tuscan Nappe Unit: the Calcare a Rhaetavicula contorta formation, including the black limestone Portoro, outcropping in the Monte Pisano area, and the Calcare selcifero della Val di Lima formation, outcropping in the Monti d'Oltre Serchio area.

The registration permits to positioning in a single reference system point clouds acquired from different points of view. Since this is typically obtained with an iterative numerical method, it represents an important source of error in the entire reverse engineering process. As all iterative methods, such errors depend on the choice of the initial solution; therefore, this process requires an expert user who, by using dedicated software, choices the sequence of clouds to be registered, imposes for each pairwise the first attempt registration, launches the iterative method, and verifies the final result. With the aim to minimize the error and the user's interaction, some devices are proposed in the market (turntable or the anthropomorphic arm, etc.). The above-mentioned hardware and software tools cannot be used in the cultural heritage applications involving large and detailed objects. In this paper, an automatic alignment method of point clouds is proposed. The method uses as inputs the constant radius features, which are frequently detectable on cultural heritage objects. The automatic alignment of the point clouds is based on the recognition, the segmentation, and the registration of the sweep lines identifiable from these features.