Diagnostic activities for theplanned and preventive conservation of mosaic pavements: The case study of the Triclinium of the Villa Romana del Casale (Sicily)

The Villa Romana del Casale at Piazza Armerina, Sicily is known for the richness of the mosaic pavements that decorate almost every room. They are the finest mosaics from the Roman world and, even because of their exceptional extent, the Villa was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. Their in situ conservation advocated by Cesare Brandi in the late 1950s, an exception to the typical treatment of excavated mosaics of the time, requires a regular monitoring of the physical condition and the establishment of mitigation strategies, however, difficult to implement especially for economic and technical reasons. In this sense, this paper intends to propose an innovative and userfriendly procedure based on laser scanning and thermo-hygrometric investigations able to assess the tessellatum status through time and to evaluate the maintenance work’s efficiency, which could be included in a long-term and sustainable approach to preserving our ancient mosaic heritage.