The seismic sequence occurring in Central Italy in 2016 represents a new test benchmark for historical masonry churches and a chance for a better comprehension of their structural behavior under earthquake actions. The many earthquakes that took place in the past have led to stratifications of repair and retrofitting interventions that sometimes worsened the structural behavior, especially when resulting in the introduction of elements not compatible with the churches’ original layout. Within this framework, the present paper intends to provide a critical review of the main interventions carried out in the churches of Central Italy for mitigating their seismic vulnerability and to evaluate their effectiveness in light of the damage surveyed on a representative sample of masonry churches after the 2016–2017 seismic sequence. The work is organized into three parts: (1) historical analysis of the territory; (2) review of the featured interventions; (3) critical appraisal of the interventions in relation to the surveyed data and assessment of their effectiveness. The goal of the work is to shed light on the correct design of retrofitting interventions in ancient masonry structures in order to enhance the structural safety of such artefacts without compromising their historical and cultural value.

This study outlines a procedure for the seismic safety evaluation of historical buildings for engineers and architects that commonly work on buildings belonging to cultural and architectural heritage. The procedure is characterized by two interrelated phases: (a) building knowledge acquisition and (b) structural behavior analysis and safety assessment. The seismic safety evaluation strongly depends on the first phase, whose data can be obtained according to a multi-disciplinary approach based on five steps: (1) critical-historical analysis; (2) photographic documentation and geometrical survey; (3) structural identification and material survey; (4) foundation and soil survey; and (5) cracking pattern and structural integrity analysis. The proposed method was applied to the evaluation of the seismic safety of the Castle of Melfi (PZ, Italy). Comprehensive and multi-disciplinary knowledge of this monument greatly facilitated an accurate seismic analysis of this monument, which was conducted both at a local and global level using a linear kinematic analysis and non-linear static (pushover) analysis, respectively.

The conservation of twentieth-century architecture, particularly the Modern Movement, faces profound theoretical challenges that remain largely unresolved. This is because modern culture, rooted in the ideal of a functional, abstract, and atemporal aesthetic, tends to programmatically reject the marks of time, such as patina and subsequent stratification. This creates a fundamental theoretical tension when applying established conservation doctrines to these buildings. This paper’s central concept, the “eternal modern”, critically examines the aspiration for formal and functional immutability in this architecture. Unlike historical monuments that embrace their own layered history, modern artifacts often resist aging, viewing materic decay and alteration as flaws to be eliminated. This inability to accept decadence, coupled with an excess of visual documentation and a cultural resistance to adaptive reuse, highlights the epistemological limitations of current conservation practices. The paper argues that modern artifacts should not be seen as crystallized objects, but as a dynamic, living heritage requiring a theoretical update based on more flexible, interpretative, and context-sensitive conservation strategies.