Securing the church of Madonna del Sole during the emergency phase of 2016 earthquake: interoperability of different actors as an instrument for reducing seismic risk of damaged built heritage

Potential damage from seismic risk is particularly high for historic buildings, as it can produce an irreversible loss of value and sense, not only concerning the material meaning but also the intangible one. Undoubtedly, the best strategy to reduce seismic risk of the built heritage consists in assessing and reducing vulnerability. In any case, it is not always possible to early intervene on historic buildings to improve seismic performance, neither it is possible to change or to completely remove some external factors (i.e., the hazard exposure due to local geotechnical features), nor to avoid that aftershocks increase the damage produced by the first event. On the contrary, it is possible to reduce the level of seismic risk for buildings also resorting to the coping capacity of a society, improving the effective reaction that authorities can oppose to a hazardous event, such as an earthquake, already during the emergency phase. This capacity, or preparedness to risk, applies also to the protection of damaged cultural heritage and particularly to churches, which constitute one of the most vulnerable typologies of historic buildings, due mainly to their shape and constructive characteristics.