The Palazzo dell’Ateneo in the upper city of Bergamo (città alta): new documentation and conservation studies

The Palazzo dell’Ateneo is an impressive neoclassical building situated between the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the cathedral of Sant’Alessandro, in the heart of the upper city of Bergamo. Erected to house the Ateneo di Scienze Lettere ed Arti – an important cultural institution founded by Napoleonic decree on 25 December 1810 – it stands on a large medieval cistern, the so-called Fontanone, partly underground. After many years of inactivity, the monument was restored at the end of the last century as a venue for temporary exhibits and public events. The University of Bergamo, on the occasion of the “Bergamo and Brescia: Italian Capital of Culture 2023”, has launched a project to improve the knowledge of the edifice. A campaign of 3D surveys and diagnostic tests aimed at both restoring the real geometries to understand its evolutionary phases and historical stratifications, and at evaluating the state of health and the structural criticalities affecting the ancient construction. Based on this case study, this paper aims at debating the concept of survey and at underlining the fundamental role of the metric-material investigation within the knowledge process aimed at establishment of the conservation project. This is today an important issue because, due to the increasing simplification of instruments and software and the reduction of costs, the role of the surveyor is very often considered marginal. In fact, it is increasingly misunderstood that the machine operates autonomously and automatically and therefore does not need to be taught by trained and competent professionals. A contradictory situation as the quality of the documents and of the restitutions of the survey does not improve with technological progress but, on the contrary, becomes increasingly poor due to the improvisation and the lack of solid cultural and scientific background.