Costruito in pietra, custodito sulla carta

“Costruito in pietra, custodito sulla carta”: the international conference on the architectural heritage of Italian municipalities, will be held at the University of Rome Tor Vergata on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 January 2026.

The conference marks the conclusion of the PRIN 2022 PNRR project Crafted in Stone / Recorded on Paper: Promoting the Architectural and Archival Heritage of the Small Italian Municipalities (13th–20th Centuries). Historical Research and Digital Enhancement (Prot. P2022YT2YJ), which involved five Research Units: Politecnico di Milano (lead institution), Politecnico di Torino, University of Genoa, University of Padua, and University of Rome Tor Vergata.

The project was coordinated by PI Isabella Balestreri, Associate Professor of History of Architecture at the DABC – Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano.

The focus of the PRIN project is the architectural heritage of municipalities in central-northern Italy between the 13th and 20th centuries, investigated by relating the “paper” documents preserved in municipal archives to the buildings commissioned over time by municipal institutions, symbolically constructed in “stone”.

The project has privileged the investigation of buildings constructed over time in certain “minor centres”, a conventional definition adopted by all scholars in a critical and problematic manner. It is believed that the body of studies presented at the conference will open new discussions on this topic, which is central to the PNRR and to future perspectives for research and heritage enhancement.

For the various outcomes of the project, and in particular for the WebGIS, which will collect thousands of specially digitised documents, please refer to the Civicarc website.

Conference programme

Over the two days, selected results of the research carried out by the 35 project participants (tenured academics, research fellows, PhD holders and PhD candidates, specialists and trainees) will be presented.

The discussion themes, chosen as session titles, will help to construct the framework of a broader discourse into which the individual case studies will be integrated, differing in historical and geographical context (Order/Disorder; Major/Minor; Architects/Engineers – Municipality/State; History/Histories).

In order to foster dialogue and open up a broad discussion, Italian and European experts have been invited to participate.

For further information on the programme, please see the attached document.