Florence: urban layout and seismic vulnerability

Abstract

A high seismic risk characterizes the Italian peninsula caused by its location in an orogenic zone that periodically gives rise to thousands of small earthquakes. Over the last ten years since 2009, several  earthquakes hit the center of Italy, damaging large and medium-sized historic towns and small rural villages, in some cases these urban agglomerations have been completely destroyed. From this point of view, attempts have been made to develop historic city analysis methods that allow to read the fragility, starting from the urban survey of both single building units and large urban areas. Highlighting the dangers, which are the result of ancient construction techniques, anthropic problems,  geological localization, etc., by creating a thematic cartography that identifies the different levels of structural  degradation to which the various priorities of intervention are related.