Geomatics and archaeometric investigations for the sustainable reuse of ruins. The Santa Chiara convent ruin in Cagliari (Sardinia)

The ruined convent of Santa Chiara, a nodal urban space connecting three historic quarters of Cagliari, has had a key role in the urban life of the city since medieval age. After the suppression of the mendicant orders in 1864 and the violent bombings during the World War II, this monument become a neglected and ruined shell of masonry with no roofs and floors, losing its central role. Several interventions for its conversion as temporal local market and the following restoration and integration works have contributed to stratify these structures nowadays not accessible but valuable benchmarks for reconstructing the history and evolution of the fabric, still unclear. Starting from the archival and bibliographic investigations, then a geomatics and archaeometric investigations of the fabric have allowed to understand and study the building’s forms, geometries, materials, developments, and chronologies. They have also permitted to recognise characteristic features or anomalies, structural morphology, and other structural issues, significant for the definition of sustainable project of reuse.