CNR - ITABC (Rome)

The ITABC is a Public Research Institute. It was founded in 1978 by Italian CNR (National Council of Research) with objective of carrying out research regarding the knowledge, protection and safeguarding of cultural.
The Institute carries out activities related to the development, definition, testing, optimisation and transfer of methods and technologies for the study, enhancement and enjoyment of Cultural Assets by means of a statistically significant number of concrete cases of investigation both in Italy and abroad, with reference to situations of great international importance.
 

Fields of reserch

The main fields of research are: material analysis, geology and geophysics, architecture and town planning; supported by survey and photogrammetric services, graphic services and a data processing centre.
ITABC has an Architecture and Town Planning Research Group, set up with the aim of improving documentation methodologies for the architectural heritage and their application to conservation.
Implementing conservation guidelines is the final goal of a process relating integrated analysis of towns of historical interest with the implementation of the conservation, re-use and revitalisation of the urban and rural landscape.
To this end, the recent ordinary and extraordinary research programmes of the Institute, either are financed out of ordinary CNR funds or through external resources (P.F .Beni Culturali, Sportello per il Mediterraneo, ARAMIS Project (Raphael Project, E.U.), Parnasus Project (MURST), METAFORA project (Culture 2000, E.U.) Contracts with the Valle d' Aosta Autonomous Region, the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples and other subjects and, lastly, out of Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds.

Lines of research

The lines of research developed during 2000 were as follows:

• l) Geographical information systems and statistical methods applied to Cultural Assets;

• 2) High resolution geological and geophysical methods for characterising archaeological sites and artefacts of historical interest;

• 3) Reconstruction and contextualization of the archaeological landscape using integrated multidisciplinary methods:

• 4) Multidisciplinary research for the cataloguing, characterisation, analysis and study of archaeological materials;

• 5) Integrated methods for the study, experimental analysis and evaluation of action to safeguard the heritage of constructions;

• 6) Dating of archaeological and geological using 14C and amino acid racemization methods.