Natural Stone and World Heritage: Itria Valley and Alberobello, Apulia Region, Italy

Apulian limestones constitute the historic building constructions of the Puglia region (in the south of Italy) named trulli (representing an outstanding universal value for UNESCO), but also other stone buildings of the well-known Itria Valley. Trulli are drywall (mortarless) constructions made of roughly worked limestone blocks collected from neighbouring fields. The limestone for trulli is quarried from different Apulian localities and, together with another local lithotype, represents the stone heritage of the Itria Valley.

This book begins with an introduction to the region of southern Italy where trulli and other typical stone architecture can be found. The Itria Valley with its towns and landscape and the town of Alberobello are described from an architectural point of view. The second section describes the different examples of building constructions in local stone of the Itria Valley, focusing on ancient and contemporary quarries. In this part petrographic and physical mechanical characteristics of the main kind of limestones are reported and discussed. The third part focuses on the main examples of stone architecture of Itria Valley, distinguishing the historical rural buildings from the other historical civil ones. In this section particular attention is given to best practices of evaluation action, protection rules and restoration methods for stone heritage in Itria Valley and Alberobello.

This book serves as a useful source of information to geologists, archaeologists, architects, historians and stone industry operators specifically, and to academic and non-academic communities, travellers, and tourism industry operators in general. The book will also be of interest to students, researchers, and rock enthusiasts spanning all age groups and academic levels.

Rossana Bellopede is enrolled at the Politecnico di Torino as Associate Professor in the scientific sector ING/IND 29 (Raw Material Engineering). She is the author of more than 110 papers published in international journals, conference proceedings and as book chapters with an H index 13. She makes lessons and laboratories of the following courses at the Politecnico di Torino: ＂Planning of Sustainable Mining＂, ＂Raw and Waste Materials Engineering＂, ＂Occupational Safety Engineering ＂, ＂Circular Economy in Building and Construction Sector＂, ＂Environmental Management of Soil, Water and Groundwater in Geoengineering＂. Her research activity has been developed on recovery and treatment of solid waste focusing also to the safety issues, durability of natural stone, bowing of natural stone slabs, testing to asbestos content measure, detection and recently on identification of microplastics in environmental samples. She is responsible for Marble Laboratory and Multimodal Laboratory at DIATI - Politecnico di Torino. She is expert of Technical Committee of CEN 246 ＂Natural Stone＂ inside WG2 ＂Test Method＂ and of ISO TC 327 Natural Stones.

She is actively collaborating with the national association in mining sector (ANIM) and in the international association on mineral processing and extractive metallurgy for mining and recycling of raw materials (PROMETIA). She is one of the inventors of a National Patent on the Recycling of the tantalum from the capacitors.

Angelamaria Quartulli is an architect specialized in monument restoration at the ＂La Sapienza＂ University of Rome, graduated in public management, studied the issues of consolidation in depth during the training structural and restoration of stone surfaces.

In the roles of the Ministry of Culture since 2012, in recent years she has dealt with architectural protection and landscape of the south-east of Bari, has published numerous essays on the restoration of architectural surfaces and on the image of the city, she directed restoration works especially in the context of the ecclesiastical heritage between the 17th and 18th centuries. She participated in the technical table for the drafting of the territorial landscape plan regional (PPTR).

She dealt with accessibility in historic centers promoting on behalf of the Superintendency in Alberobello a seminar on the topic as part of the celebrations of the UNESCO site and sharing with the Administration operational choices on accessibility in the context of planning the valorisation of the historical routes of the monumental districts currently being implemented.