Il restauro di una rovina. Analisi costruttiva e proposte di riuso per la chiesa di S. Anna a Piazza Armerina

The 18th century Church of St. Anne in Piazza Armerina, which is annexed to the homonymous monastery, is a baroque church with an octagonal plan and a curved facade. The monastery was active until 1866, when it became a public property and the religious order was suppressed. The municipality transformed the monastery into a primary school and the church into the seat of a sodality. In 1935 a part of the roof collapsed and the church was closed. Then, it was abandoned for a long time. In the Seventies, the architect Franco Minissi was entrusted with a plan for the overall reuse of the architectural complex. However, its design was not implemented and the church definitively fell in ruin. The progressive decay of the building brought to light the wall structure and the different layers of the architectural decoration. Any possibility of recovering the lost parts would have been excessive in relation to the extant traces and also artificial and inexpressive in comparison to the current condition of the building which is affected by the wounds of time. A new authenticity arose from the long neglect. Which is the authenticity of St. Anne? How can we respect the original material and preserve the historic value of the monument? How can we design the conservation of a ruin and precisely describe procedures which are generally postponed to the implementation phase? These were some of the questions which the study wanted to answer.