Dalle fonti archivistiche all'analisi multi-livello dei terremoti storici.

This paper wishes to emphasize the role played by historical documents to analyse the urban context in which the earthquakes acted, the effects on the buildings and the institutional response to the disaster. In particular, primary sources are very useful to get information about the building features at the time of the event, the damage caused to the buildings, and the technical and administrative aspects linked to the rebuilding phase. To this purpose the work considers three earthquakes, happened between the beginning of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century, and three towns located in Southern Italy. In detail, seismic events analysed are those occurring in 1826 (epicentre close to Potenza, Basilicata region), 1857 (epicentre in Agri Valley, southern Basilicata), and 1930 (epicentre in Irpinia, Campania region). As regards the towns analysed, we refer to Potenza, Melfi, and Rionero in Vulture, all located in Basilicata region.