Heritage buildings and historic microclimate without HVACtechnology: Malatestiana Library in Cesena, Italy,UNESCO Memory of the World

In the assessment of the indoor microclimate of heritage buildings, the general goal is to evaluate andimprove users’ comfort. In our opinion the comfort of users should not come first; the approach should be:“Heritage First”, with priority given to the creation of the best microclimate conditions for the preservationof buildings, artefacts, etc. The case study described in this paper concerns an authentic exemplar: theMalatestiana Library in Cesena, Italy, listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. The indoormicroclimatic conditions are exemplary because, since the year of its construction in 1454, its functionas a library has remained unchanged: conserving the original book rests, same manuscripts and – mostextraordinarily – the same indoor microclimatic conditions. The building does not have HVAC, never.Our hypothesis is that the lack of HVAC has allowed a perfect conservation of the book rests and of themanuscripts. In this paper we describe the results of the monitoring campaign; of how our research ledto the discovery that microclimatic parameters change over a long period, as a result of simply openingwindows to change the air, involving water vapour and CO2variation within the air volume of Library.