Pietrabuona (Tuscany, Italy). Building archaeology of a border settlement between Lucca and Florence

The Pietrabuona castle was built by Pietro II, Bishop of Lucca (896-933 AD) on the top of a hill around tha Valleriana Valley. After the fail of the first «incastellamento», a new castle was built in 12th Century, when the new stable demographic consistency allowed the success of the settlement during the Middle and the Modern Ages. In 14th Century Pietrabuona was conquered by Pisa, but brought soon under the Florentine control. The survey campaign (using a combination of a laser scanner and a total station) was carried out by a working group of architects, archaeologists, historians, landscapists and geologists. The synergy of all the skills provided a huge amount of informations about the urban and architectural heritage, through the implementation of new protocols. The laser scanning equipment allowed the survey of all the buildings in a few days and a wide range of output that became an essential tool for stratigraphic analysis. In this way it has been possible to identify the buildings’ relative chronology and to analyze the wall building techniques, the architectural elements and the building types. We were also able to define and develop measure-chronology curves, always based on good architectural reliefs (also in cases of narrow streets, inaccessibility). All these data permitted to know the transformations of the settlement, the technical knowledge, the introduction of new building types like the Pisan tower-houses or the Florentine lodge-houses, and finally the developing of different buildings of the power: from Romanesque Church of St. Matteo to the contemporary Church, and from medieval castle to the modern Salviati «domus». In conclusion, the archaeological analyses, thanks to good survey, allowed to record all the Pietrabuona’s architectures and to reconstruct the local economy, the social differences and the artistic-architectural influences, due to the complex political events.