Aspetti ambientali nel progetto di recupero della chiesa di S. Giusta di Bazzano

In the village of Bazzano (L'Aquila), in the third century AD, was martyred Saint Giusta. The place became an object of veneration and, six centuries later, a chapel was built nearby. In the twelfth century the Benedictines built a church on the same site with a basilica plan with three naves which conserved, in the crypt, the place of the martyrdom. The church has undergone numerous alterations in time. The left-hand nave collapsed in 1461 following the earthquake. Further changes like the reduction in the number of bays, the loss of the perimeter wall of the other nave, the partial collapse of the façade facing and the consequent abandoning of the typical horizontal feature of L'Aquila churches are due to the 1915 earthquake. In particular the work carried out by the local Superintendence in 1930, as well as repairing damage, altered the layout of the crypt space. In 2008 the DAU Department of the University of L'Aquila launched a survey of the church which ended in 2014, at the same time as the works of reinforcement and restoration carried out by the Superintendence after the damages by the 2009 earthquake. The survey, as well as making an invaluable contribution to the documentation and interpretation of the monument, revealed the need for a total rethink of the layout of the relevant urban space of the church.