Indoor microclimate and preservation of Historic Architecture: the Malatestiana Library in Cesena

The present proposal concerns the operation of monitoring the indoor microclimate of the Malatestiana Library in Cesena. The preservation of historic buildings and of their contents depends on several factors, to which may be attributed the decay of materials and structure. The microclimate is also related to the issue of the use of historic buildings. Until recently, work of this kind adopted plant systems to adjust the internal microclimate, the objective being the comfort of the occupants, rather than that of the building itself; on the contrary, attention to the premises is of more importance than the comfort of the people using the building itself. This building is a unique example within Heritage Buildings as, from its construction to the present day, it has always maintained the same use as a public library, preserving the desks and the original manuscripts, thus ensuring optimal conservation. To the knowledge of those who have dealt with it, the building has never availed of technical systems controlling the internal microclimate. It has naturally conserved the building and manuscripts. The results of the research show that, simply because of its intrinsic architectural qualities and of careful management of the opening of windows and of visitor access, the building is capable of ensuring optimum storage conditions both for itself and for the manuscripts preserved in it. The aim of the research is the proposal of a management system and a continuous monitoring system of the environment of the Malatestiana Library. Such a system would allow to manage the conservation of the building and also in the case of artefacts, entrust the management of the library to external personnel.