Innovation and Tradition in the Reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Roma (1825-1928): technologies, procedures, protagonists.

This paper outlines the complex condition of the reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The history of this reconstruction is well known; nevertheless, there is no specific information on the techniques and procedures used on the St. Paul building site, nor is there a comparison with Roman pre-industrial building methods. This in-depth research is necessary to affirm the absolute superiority of the St. Paul’s building site in the Roman context during the mid 19th century, when it replaced the Fabbrica of St. Peter’s in the Vatican as the supplier of machinery and building equipment for other Roman building sites. The reconstruction of St. Paul’s Basilica, after the disastrous fire of 15 July 1823, was entrusted to architects Giuseppe Valadier, Pasquale Belli, Luigi Poletti and Virginio Vespignani; procedures and operational techniques were modelled on the Roman building tradition, improved between the 16th and 18th centuries thanks to the spectacular building operations promoted by the popes. In the St. Paul building yard the importance of that tradition was confirmed by the use of materials, technologies and traditional practices and by the practice of hiring tools and machinery form the St. Peter’s Fabbrica (begun in January 1827 for the re-use of some materials and again in 1834 for the raising of the numerous columns of the central nave of St. Paul’s Basilica). The procedures and technologies used in the reconstruction of St. Paul’s are described in highly detailed construction documents, precise records of payment - some still unpublished - and textbooks compiled for students of the School of Applied Engineering. In particular, the documents from the Archives of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vatican make reference to the complex management of the two work yards and of the frequent exchange of workers, materials and equipment between the two Basilicas. In an era of great technical innovations, the permanence of traditional building techniques and technologies into the early decades of the 20th century substantiates the complex artistic and political situation characteristic of the later years of the Papal States, alternating between single acts of conservation and the inevitable processes of modernization.