Reinforcement of Palazzo della Ragione, Milan

The Palazzo della Ragione is the oldest masonry public building in Milan. The building comprises a lower part from the 13th century with marked cracks on the external wall and an upper part from the 18th century, where poorer materials were used. In the 1960s and 70s, very severe load conditions developed on the building, not only due to excavation of the first underground line close to the foundations, but also due to the repeated vibrations induced by the nearby trains. Dynamic tests to record the global behaviour of the building were performed before and after the execution of the consolidation works. Trains in the underground close to the foundations were used as dynamic loads. A regular repetition of the same dynamic tests would be useful in evaluating the effectiveness and durability of the adopted proposals.