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NewYork. EllisIsland
tant information can be gathered about traditional working tools, how and why some techniques were used to finish stone (straight chiselling, claw chiselling, anathyrosis, etc.), bricks (surface grinding, scratching, etc.) (figure 1), plaster (smoothing, claw chiselling, graffiti, painting, etc.), mortar joints (smoothing, pointing, etc.), clay soil. As a consequence, a historic construction has been gradually endowed with new important connotations. Such information helped restorers reproduce in some cases, or conserve in some other cases. Similarly, studying architectural surfaces can help recognize some elements that had nearly totally disappeared, like the paintings on Roman marble, on Medieval slabs and on stuccowork of all epochs (for instance, the colourful stuccoes of the underground Basilica di Porta Maggiore and the paintings on limestone in the churches of Abruzzo, e.g. the parapets in the church of S. Pellegrino in Bominaco). Studying architectural surfaces also makes a precious source to recognize how an edifice was altered over time and to identify any repairs, replacements, restyling in the whole edifice. Often, surface finishings are given the role of adding a coherent and consistent wrap to the multiple layers of a building that has been successively adapted to the needs of different epochs. For instance, the ruins of Royaumont Abbey in France (figure 2) caused by the destructions during the French Revolution were restored by accurately rebuilding the masonry and an etched false curtain wall: this is the current outlook of the building, which is in most respects the result of the 19th century feeling of how a Medieval architecture should look like. By patiently matching the information collected about different buildings, one can make up a stratigraphy of the traditional local construction, which may be useful to date other buildings and their elements in future. In the city of L’Aquila, for instance, the finishing methods used for the surfaces (and, of course, the masonry layout itself) offer useful indications about the succession of construction techniques over time: more or less regular limestone blocks or regular limestone ashlars, either exposed or covered with a very thin layer of plaster, were widely used in the Middle Ages; limestone blocks and evenly spread mortar prevailed in the 15th century; smaller and more irregularly arranged blocks coated with thick plaster characterize the most recent buildings. This precious material and ornamental heritage is now endangered by post-earthquake reconstruction works, which are too exclusively focused on structural rehabilitation only.
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