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The transition to a circular economy entails new challenges for architects and designers. Among these, one challenge is to look at waste not only as new resources, from an environmental perspective, but also as bearers of information capable of communicating their history and origin. Moreover, waste can be considered as a means of activating unexpected knowledge and social connections. The article illustrates a circular design experimentation, conducted with architecture and design students and a wine farm, which led to the creation of the CiaBOT project, a belvedere aimed at enhancing the landscape and providing a temporary stopping point in the Monferrato hills (UNESCO World Heritage Site, Italy). CiaBOT is not only a belvedere but is a microarchitecture capable of conveying both material and immaterial cultural values. Its form and materials are intimately connected with the territory with and for which it was designed. These make CiaBOT a "space" of hybridization and dialogue between agricultural tradition and innovation. But it is also a "space" of fieldwork education and knowledge co-generation in which academic and non-academic stakeholders have measured themselves. Through the description of the different stages of the design process, the article is part of the debate on new sustainable ways of designing and building, reflecting on new models of circular economy based as much on design strategies and processes as on the enhancement of human labor and the use of technologies appropriate to the context and actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ancient charred bread can be preserved, maintaining microstructures of cereals. • Bread found in seven archaeological sites in Northern Italy was analysed. • Optical and scanning electron microscopy are used to study microstructural elements. • Infrared spectroscopy can be used to support microscopy. • Raw materials and methods of preparation were identified. This study examines charred bread-like samples found in several archaeological sites across northern Italy and dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages, some of which are included amongst the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The aim is to investigate differences and homogeneities in bread production processes in different eras and cultures. Bread was a staple food in many ancient societies, but has rarely been found amongst the materials that survive in archaeological sites. When it is found, it is usually because the bread was charred by accidental combustion (falling into the oven during baking) or deliberate combustion (for ritual purposes). The literature on the issue is not abundant, but has been growing over the past decade. There is, therefore, room to propose new study methodologies at this time. We studied eight samples of charred bread-like products and we used optical and scanning electron microscopy to identify plant tissue remains attributable to cereal caryopses, partly modified by bread-making processes. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and, for the first time, infrared spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance mode (FTIR-ATR) were also used to investigate the composition and preparation methods of the different types of bread-like products. In particular, FTIR-ATR analysis can give indications about the presence of starch, gluten and lignin in the sample under investigation and it can, therefore, be used as a screening to guide subsequent SEM analysis in the search for specific cereal residues in the dough. In some cases, the different techniques used also revealed the presence of minerals such as silicates and carbonates, probably due to grinding residues or poor sample cleaning. During SEM observations, phytoliths, diatoms and framboids were also found in some of the samples. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for real-time, collaborative virtual tools to support remote activities across various domains, including education and cultural heritage. Virtual walkthroughs provide a potent means of exploring, learning about, and interacting with historical sites worldwide. Nonetheless, creating realistic and user-friendly applications poses a significant challenge. This study investigates the potential of collaborative virtual walkthroughs as an educational tool for cultural heritage sites, with a focus on the Sassi of Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Italy. The virtual walkthrough application, developed using RealityCapture and Unreal Engine, leveraged photogrammetric reconstruction and deep learning-based hand gesture recognition to offer an immersive and accessible experience, allowing users to interact with the virtual environment using intuitive gestures. A test with 36 participants resulted in positive feedback regarding the application's effectiveness, intuitiveness, and user-friendliness. The findings suggest that virtual walkthroughs can provide precise representations of complex historical locations, promoting tangible and intangible aspects of heritage. Future work should focus on expanding the reconstructed site, enhancing the performance, and assessing the impact on learning outcomes. Overall, this study highlights the potential of virtual walkthrough applications as a valuable resource for architecture, cultural heritage, and environmental education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, research on outstanding universal value (OUV) protection and tourism development at World Natural Heritage sites (WNHSs) has attracted scholarly attention. The aesthetic value of natural landscapes is a powerful driving force for tourism development. Using this approach as an entry point to study aesthetic value protection and tourism development will help to relieve the contradiction between protection and development and promote the sustainable utilization of heritage sites. However, no comprehensive literature review has examined research on aesthetic value protection and tourism development at WNHSs. To fill this gap, we used a systematic literature review framework, and bibliometric analyses of 194 journal articles were collected from the Web of Science (WOS) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. The results show the following: (1) the overall fluctuating upward trend in the number of publications indicates that the research in this field is gradually expanding, the regions studied in the literature are mainly focused on China, Italy and Australia, and the research institutions conducting the research are mainly Asian universities. (2) The landmark research achievements mainly focus on theoretical foundation, model construction, monitoring and evaluation, technical measures and other dimensions and the implications for World Heritage karst sites (WHKSs), where theoretical research is the main focus, and that research on monitoring and evaluation, technical measures and model construction is relatively limited. (3) On this basis, 7 key scientific and technological issues are summarized and provide insights into future research directions for the conservation of aesthetic values and tourism development at WHKSs, and future research should strengthen knowledge of natural heritage conservation based on aesthetic value identification and focus on the theoretical basis of the coordination between the conservation of aesthetic value and tourism development at WNHSs. Research should explore the science and technology and measures associated with the coordination between aesthetic value conservation and tourism development, and reveal the mechanisms and paths for coordination between WNHS conservation and tourism development in karst areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers new insights into the largest threats to natural and mixed World Heritage sites in developed countries as considered by their management. In addition to this, the capacity of the management to deal with threats is examined. An Ordered Probit model is used that distinguishes three groups of threats and four categories of adaptive capacity of the management. Data originate from the 2014 UNESCO Periodic Report II for sites in economically advanced countries (Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea) linked to the World Heritage Site database. Estimation results reveal that the probability of a major threat to World Heritage sites is perceived to be highest in the category of climate change and extreme weather events, followed by local conditions affecting the physical structure (temperature, rain, dust). Sites in tropical climates are perceived as significantly more threatened, as are those earlier listed as in danger. The likelihood of perceiving a major threat is highest in Turkey, Italy, Norway and North America. Threats related to climate change are those the management has the lowest capacity to deal with when other important aspects are controlled for. Large and natural areas have a higher perceived administrative capacity to deal with threats than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the petrographic and textural characterization of some ornamental limestones widely used in UNESCO World Heritage Sites in northeastern Italy, and the assessment of the main decay factors present in the environment where they are employed. Eleven carbonate building materials have been here considered, all commonly present in the built environment of northeastern Italy: two different varieties of Vicenza Stone (Nanto and Costozza), of Verona Stone (Red and Brown Verona), of Asiago Stone (Pink and White Asiago), and of Chiampo Stone (Ondagata and Paglierino), the Istria Stone (Orsera), the Aurisina Stone, and the Botticino Stone. The Carrara marble is also considered, and used as a reference material for the determination of the grain-size distribution. Stone durability was measured by accelerated aging tests which reproduced freeze–thaw and salt crystallization cycles, among the main causes of deterioration in the region. Petrographic and textural features of these carbonate rocks as well as their porosity resulted to strongly influence their deterioration rate, and their knowledge is, therefore, essential when trying to predict stone decay as a function of the local environmental forcings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raw earth has been one of the first construction techniques. All over the world there is varying evidence of earthen constructions. Thanks to its geological and morphological nature, Italy has a fair number of earthen constructions, albeit of limited dimensions, belonging to a constructive heritage of the past. On the other hand, China, especially the south of the country, is characterized by numerous structures of raw earth of considerable dimensions, recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The research is focused, in the Italian case, on the areas of Lucania and, in the Chinese case, on the areas of the Fujian province. The work illustrates the preliminary results of a multidisciplinary research activity centered on the recovery and enhancement of the vernacular raw earth construction. The future goal of the study is the industrialization and production of raw earth technologies through the implementation of smart manufacturing of innovative materials that will allow the contemporary use of, an ancient sustainable building tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 800-year history, the University of Padova (Padua, Italy) has come to play an important role in the development of animal science in Italy and Europe. Having founded the oldest university botanical garden (1545; UNESCO World Heritage Site) and anatomical theatre (1595), and awarded the first university degree to a woman (Elena-Lucrezia Cornaro-Piscopia, 1678), the University instituted the Public School of Agriculture (Orto Agrario) in 1765 and the Collegium Zooiatricum in 1773. Between 1986 and 1995, under the leadership of Professor Mario Bonsembiante, animal scientist and rector, the scientific-technological center of Agripolis was established, including the Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (with the experimental farm and veterinary hospital), the Istituto Zooprofilattico delle Venezie, and Veneto Agricoltura. Agripolis rapidly became the most innovative center in Italy for teaching, research, and extension services in the fields of agricultural, animal, veterinary, food and environmental sciences. In the last 35 years, the number of Italian animal scientists has remained almost constant, but they have moved on to more innovative research topics closer to society's demand and concerns, and significantly enhanced their international standing, reaching the first position in Europe and the fourth in the world in terms of citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the cleaning procedures carried out during a recent restoration work, the Matera Cathedral's (UNESCO World Heritage Site) façade needed the application of a water repellent treatment. Aqueous emulsions of silanes/siloxanes, also in a mixture with acrylic polymer and an alkyl/alkoxysilanic resin (by BEL CHIMICA S.r.l. and PHASE restauro S.r.l), have been tested as representative of the most used formulations in the restoration of buildings in Italy, especially in the last decade. This paper focuses on the best practices to be adopted for the identification of the suitable protective product in terms of effectiveness, harmfulness and durability, in particular respect to photo-aging and thermo-hygrometrical aging. The conservation materials have been tested in situ and in laboratory on a stone block expressly extracted from the monument. The chemical composition of the products and their degradation processes were characterized by means of FT-IR and PY-GC-MS. The performance of the treatments was evaluated, both in laboratory by permeability, color and capillarity measurements and in situ by non-destructive techniques (IR reflectance spectroscopy, color measurements, water absorption tests by contact sponge). Silane/siloxane emulsion presented more pronounced degradation phenomena after artificial aging, while the mixture of silanes/siloxanes and acrylic polymers decreased the permeability to water vapour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores sound atmospheres on the ground of the city of Matera, Italy, through the authors' academic practices that work across disciplinary borders, i.e. architectural design and sensory experiences, storytelling/poetry and architecture. In particular, the authors carry out a research project composed of sound recordings, perception workshops and soundscape installations for students of architecture. A designer or architectural student's curriculum should include the acoustic properties of architectural space that may shape a user's esthetic judgment. Matera exhibits a long history of contradictions. Seventy years ago the city bore the label, "the shame of Italy" for the precarious living conditions of the inhabitants, but today the city is listed as a World Heritage Site, and European Capital of Culture 2019. The polarities of Matera present a basis to study the characteristic soundscapes of a modern city still engraved by the past. The research represents a first attempt at methodical sonic experiments on the vast scale of the entire city of Matera with the involvement of university students, researchers, teachers, and citizens that culminated in the production of five urban soundscape installations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ravenna, the former grand capital of the late Roman and early Byzantine Empires and a popular modern UNESCO World Heritage site, is a city rarely included in major historical surveys of Italy during the Grand Tour. An exploration of period sources may reveal why: it was, for many centuries between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, a rundown parish town that was incredibly difficult to reach by conventional transportation. This article collates and deconstructs a number of Grand Tour sources in order to gain an understanding of Ravenna in the eighteenth century, and, further, an understanding of the contemporary attitudes towards post-Classical monuments and artwork. This exploration allows us to ask broader questions about Ravenna's place on the Grand Tour. As a city with very little to offer in the way of Classical monuments, it slightly complicates our idea of classical reception on the Grand Tour and shows us how travellers navigated a place replete with late antique basilicas and Byzantine mosaics instead of marble sculptures and tombs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land capability classification is based on chemical and physical properties of soils for agricultural purposes. Objective of this study is the realization of the land capability map in the Vernazza catchment, an historically terraced landscape in the Cinque Terre National Park, recognized as a World Heritage site by UNESCO since 1997. A pedolandscape map with a descriptive legend, based on the soil-landscape paradigm for the prediction of soil classes and their spatial distribution, was produced. After, a land capability map was created by classifying the pedolandscape units to aid the sustainable territorial planning in the National Park. The results were plotted on a 1:4000 scale map with a descriptive legend. Land capability map is dominated by lands with severe limitation and only the 30% of the study area may be used for crops but it requires very careful management and conservation practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological growth represents one of the main threats for the conservation of subterranean cultural heritage. Knowledge of the conditions which favour the various taxonomic groups is important in delineating their control methods. Combining our experience regarding hypogea in Italy and the Republic of Korea, we aim to perform a critical review and comparison of the Biodeterioration Patterns (BPs) found, the materials used, and the conservative treatments applied. For this purpose, we focused on Etruscan tombs (Italy, 7th to 3th century BC) and the ancient tombs of the Baekje Dynasty (Republic of Korea, 6th to 7th centuries AD), most of which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites, collecting original and bibliographic data as well as official documents. Results highlight the rich biodiversity of the bacterial and fungal species. Phototrophs were observed only in niches with sufficient light and the development of roots was also detected. Changes in humidity and temperature, the nature of the soil, nutrient accumulation, and vegetation above the hypogea along with human activities explain the different BPs. The effects of biocide treatments are also discussed, such as the emergence of dangerous fungal species. The shared data also enhance the role of overlaying tumuli and vegetation as well as protective barriers to reduce biological risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore whether the UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) designation affects tourists' evaluation of the local destination hosting the site, building on a large sample of about 0.8 million tourists who visited Italy over the period 1997–2015. We find that the inscription onto the UNESCO World Heritage List exerts surprisingly a negative effect on the overall evaluation of the destination and also on the evaluation of its artistic assets though the magnitude of the latter is lower. The effect is heterogeneous across visitors, depending on evaluation levels, as well as origin/destinations and demographics. Nonetheless, the presence of multiple WHSs in the same destination tends to increase evaluation, suggesting that destination stakeholders with previous experience in dealing with WHS designations are better equipped to manage the complicated relationship between tourism and preservation. Managerial and policy-making implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a university education based on disciplinary integration based on the principle of dealing with the needs that come from the territory in a country like Italy, rich in cultural heritage. It refers to representation technologies and software that offer increasingly advanced tools.

The essay aims at reappraising the role of Augusto Telluccini (1876-1930), a roman official at the Ministry of the Royal House, who became an art historian, and later Superintendent of the Piedmont historical monuments. In that position, from 1921 to 1928 he coordinated all the operations concerning two of the most relevant museum restorations and outfitting: Palazzo Madama and Stupinigi. The paper reinterprets Telluccini’s story under a practical perspective and considers him both as the main modern reviewer of Juvarra’s works and a valuable museologist: the first to understand the relevance of the Royal Residences network, which are now included in the Unesco World Heritage List. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural Tuscany has become both a paragon of harmonious beauty and a terrain of legal conflict and recrimination. When they do not resort to essentialist notions of taste, many commentators are prone to explain the ‘preservation’ of Tuscany's countryside as the outcome of locally rooted legislative interventions meant to prevent ‘speculation’ and ‘debasement’ (scempio). Tuscany is indeed the site of layers of normative constraints and guidelines, ranging from local zoning regulations to the expectations associated with UNESCO's World Heritage Site status. Far from being self-evident, however, these normative constructs have been debated in Tuscan society over decades of rapid and often chaotic change. The reinvention of rural Tuscany as a paragon of beauty emerged from the search for an elusive form of coherence and meaning, whose features generated both conflict and accommodations. By focusing on a valley in southern Tuscany which obtained the status of World Heritage Site in 2004 (the Orcia valley), the article shows the power of the circumventions, negotiations and reinterpretations in which rural Tuscans have engaged while navigating the alternative temporalities of global validation, national legitimation and local belongings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO's World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 12-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing sites that cover large areas or have multiple designations within their boundary can be challenging, particularly if several organisations are responsible for managing different aspects of the site. Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site (WHS) was designated for its archaeological importance which is of universal significance. The management of Hadrian’s Wall is formalised in the WHS Management Plan (2008–2014), which aims to cover different objectives, with archaeology at the core of management. This article draws on management documents of the WHS, established visitor planning frameworks and qualitative interviews with managers along Hadrian’s Wall to discuss the evolution of a values-based management approach. It is evident that managers have to balance different values, priorities and interests, and make trade-offs when they work in partnership on a multiple-use site so that conflicts can be resolved – and whilst this may look straightforward on paper, in practice, it can be much more difficult for institutions and individuals to compromise their own professional or personal values. Despite its challenges, this article advocates a values-based, or pluralistic, management approach as the most effective means of managing multiple-use sites, resolving management conflicts and working in partnership to agreed outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of this paper, develops from the consideration that, since the second half of the XXth century, urban planning of Italian historical centers seems constrained by the fear of compromising the architectures of the past. Rome's city centre, today UNESCO site, gathers a built up heritage that witness its long and unique existence. The missing industrialization phase that, during the XIXth century, determined the urban transformation of the great European capital cities, has permitted to a large area characterized by highly stratified urban tissue to survive. The aim of this project is to exploit the geometric precision and descriptive detail, characterizing the "Nuova pianta di Roma", published in 1748 by Giovanni Battista Nolli, fot studying the urban transformations at housing block level. The rigorous georeferencing of the historical cartography, allows for the spatial comparison with actual cartographies and with very high resolution satellite images, and the consequent analysis of the urban structure and its formal and functional contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between tourism and planning in UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) sites. It concentrates on the relation between Management Plans (MPs) and other (local and regional) planning instruments and policies able to influence the promotion of sustainable and responsible development. This is explored through an examination of two important tourist locations in Sicily: Agrigento (the Valley of the Temples) and the Aeolian Islands, which have both been recognized as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The analysis of these case studies will point out the challenge of integrating different management and planning regimes. The paper shows how supranational policies often lose their efficacy in relation to regional and local planning systems. It underlines how the interrelation between the WHL MP and other (local and regional) plans is on the one hand necessary and on the other hand problematic, due to the difficult integration between planning instruments operating in the same area, but managed by different actors, with different time schedules, resources and legal effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The problem of environmental monitoring aimed at identifying and evaluating the weathering mechanisms affecting historical stoneworks is here discussed and a methodology based on the use of already available, long record, urban-scale environmental data is proposed. An example of its application to the Cathedral of Modena (Italy, XII-XIV century, included in the UNESCO''s World Heritage List) is then presented. In this case, the methodology allowed the identification of the main degradation causes, which found significant confirmation by material diagnostics on the available samples and finite element structural modelling. Thanks to the decay causes identification allowed by the proposed methodology, more effective restoration procedures can be outlined. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The devitalization of lithobionts prior to their removal from engraved rocks is a common conservation practice periodically undertaken in rock art sites. In this study, we assessed in situ the efficacy of three traditional biocides and of an innovative microwave heating system, and compared different application protocols to devitalize foliose and crustose lichens and a cyanobacteria-dominated biofilm on the rock engravings of Valle Camonica (UNESCO site n.94, Italy). The analysis of their vitality and stress responses by monitoring chlorophyll a fluorescence parameters (F v /F m , F 0 , OJIP transient) showed that the common application of biocides by brush is rather ineffective, particularly in the case of the resistant crustose lichens. The heating of rock surfaces to 70 °C for a few minutes by the microwave system caused devitalization of lithobionts to a similar extent as the biocide application with cellulose poultice, which, however, introduced high amounts of chemicals in the environment. The microwave irradiation overcame any lithobiontic stress resistance and avoided useless or excessive spread of biocides, appearing a promising sustainable approach for the parallel conservation of rock art and its surrounding natural environment. • The efficacy of three biocides and a microwave (MW) heating system was assessed. • Poultice application of biocides devitalized lichens and a cyanobacterial biofilm. • MW heating to 70 °C accomplished the same effect avoiding the use of chemicals. • The application of biocides by brush was ineffective against lichens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]