Medieval survivals in modern Rome

An analysis of medieval buildings in Rome with "defensive" characteristics has been ongoing for the past four years (towers, fortified houses, fortifications on ancient monuments). The research, originally designed to provide a graphic database on architecture, developed to become systematic analysis of individual monuments, of their structural and utilitarian evolution through the ages to the present day. The paper will illustrate a series of cases in point. An additional objective of the research programme, which is inter-disciplinary, is to test non-destructive techniques on buildings to ascertain the various stages of their construction. At the same time, the idea was to produce a prototype geographical information system (urban topographical scale 1:1000) uniting all the related tables and all the information acquired.