In the last years it has been progressively invested many efforts in the cultural heritage digitization: surveying, modeling activities, diagnostic analysis and historic data collection of architectural heritage. Such actions have been mainly acquired for the preservation process, during the restoration and construction site. Unfortunately, many of them are left abandoned in a latent status without any connection with the long life cycle of the historic architectures or connection to the dissemination. The paper presents the case of an informative model for the Basilica di Collemaggio generated on high resolution surveying (laser scanning, photogrammetric point clouds and IRT Infrared Thermography) to manage the knowledge acquired on the geometry and the collected information on materials, construction technology and decay analysis for the design and conservation after the earthquake occurred at L’Aquila. The paper illustrates the HBIM (Heritage Building Information Model) achieved to support the restoration process funded by EniServizi within the project ‘Restart from Collemaggio’. It is described the generative modelling process implemented to embody the complexity and specificity of the morphology related to the collected information on the state of the art, the sum of the current damages and transformations during the centuries, for the preservation plan of the monument. Many damaged structures as in the case of the north wall with the Holy Door and of the arched naves with the ancient pillars have been restored preserving the maximum level of authenticity of the materials and construction techniques. The HBIM of the Basilica, re-opened to the public on December 2017, is ready to a sentinel role among past present and future.

In this work, the study of a complex masonry umbrella vault located within Masegra Castle (Museum of Sondrio territory, Northern Italy) is presented. Built during the renewal of the castle in the 16th century, the umbrella vault of Masegra Castle is characterized by a total of eight sails, with four half-cross vaults added at the corners, supported by four walls, and resulting in a quadrangular horizontal plan. The observed crack pattern seems to derive from vertical settlement phenomena involving at least one of the supporting walls. A multidisciplinary approach based on innovative technologies for the geometric reconstruction, detailed analysis of the construction, the historical evolution, and its state of conservation, has been followed. Starting from dense laser scanner point clouds and photogrammetric surveys, historical building information modeling (HBIM) models have been created and allowed the generation of an accurate geometrical representation of the umbrella vault through nonuniform rational basis-splines (NURBS) surfaces. Starting from the NURBS-based model, an adaptive kinematic procedure is used to determine the failure behavior under settlements. A discretization through triangular NURBS elements, in which the real geometry remains unvaried, is adopted. Each element is idealized as a rigid block and jumps of displacement are allowed at the boundaries only. By applying the principle of virtual works, a discontinuous displacement field deriving from an imposed settlement is obtained. As a consequence of the reduced number of elements adopted, a metaheuristic mesh adaptation procedure is finally applied to find the correct disposition of fracture lines. Different settlement typologies are adopted in the analyses to reproduce the crack pattern observed on the umbrella vault. Finally, an inverse analysis is conducted to estimate the shape of the occurred settlements starting from the observed crack pattern.

Recently, due to a renewed interest in the religious architectural heritage of the Caribbean island of Cuba, some important interventions for the restoration and reinforcement of the colonial churches of the island were carried out. The authors, collaborating with the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba in a project concerning the protection of Cuban churches, applied some nondestructive and noninvasive destructive tests for an in-depth study of the main characteristics of those structures. The diagnostic method, developed mainly for the historical buildings or monuments of Europe and North America, was used to study some peculiarities of the building construction traditions of this area. The proposed techniques revealed the existence of several original solutions, for example, defenses for seismic mitigation, developed to resist the earthquakes that frequently affect the area.

Digital recording of historic buildings and sites in mountainous areas could be challenging. The paper considers and discusses the case of historical defensive structures in the Italian Alps, designed and built to be not accessible. Drone images and photogrammetric techniques for 3D modeling play a fundamental role in the digital documentation of fortified constructions with non-contact techniques. This manuscript describes the use of drones for reconstructing the external surfaces of some fortified structures using traditional photogrammetric/SfM solutions and novel methods based on NeRFs. The case of direct orientation based on PPK and traditional GCPs placed on the ground is also discussed, considering the difficulties in placing and measuring control points in such environments.

The work focuses on the structural properties of two Byzantine churches built during the 11^th century in Torcello (Venice Laguna) and Stilo (east coast of Calabria). Despite the large distance between the two religious buildings and deep differences in the building typology, some common features are detectable, recalling the construction solutions of the Byzantine structures. Both churches, well known from an historical and artistic point of view, represent two important examples of the Byzantine period. The authors, involved in a vulnerability analysis of these buildings, had the opportunity to investigate some structural characteristics of the masonry walls through non-destructive tests (NDT). The results of the experimental campaign are presented here in order to contribute to the knowledge of Byzantine constructive systems.