the 
ain 
  
INTRODUCTION 
In 1982 the Procuratoria di San Marco, in 
the person of Proto arch. Ettore Vio, 
decided to Start a systematic and 
scientific  (Brumana R., Galeazzo G., 
Monti C., Vio E.,1989) survey of all the 
St. Marcus’ buildings. This work was 
intended to support the work of 
continuous mainteance and restauration 
made by the technicians and workers of 
the Procuratoria, but the final purpose 
was to achive the possibility to build up 
a "complete text of knowledge about each 
single part of the Basilica. These 
informations must be recorded on 
electronic support, so to obtain 
horizontal sections of the history of the 
monument in a well specified year or 
period, and in a diachrony way for each 
single part with a correct mosaic of 
photograms in the finale phase of 
representation". 
In such archivies all the data collected 
in former times (as images, texts, 
graphics, chemical-physical analysis, 
test on materials....) are organized in a 
structure suited not only for the 
registration, but for the systematics and 
comparative research of data. The 
finality is a rigorous control of the 
different phenomena concerning the 
Basilica, a study of the main historical 
and architectural characteristics and to 
give an operative support for the works 
of restauration or for the usual 
managerial routine (Galeazzo G., 1988). 
Such computerized  archivies are growing 
up in parallel with the project of 
research regarding the preliminary 
  
investigation of the static behaviour and 
the state of conservation of the bearing 
walls of the St.Marcus Basilica. 
The here presented work of research 
has been made possible by the 
collaboration of the Procuratoria di San 
Marco and the Dep. of I.I.A.R. of the 
Politecnico of Milano in occasion of the 
celebrations of the. millennium of 
foundation of the San Marco Basilica 
(1994). 
The photogrammetric takens and the 
restitutions are made by G.E.O.S.I.G.M.A. 
It- is without any doubt that this 
research acquire a great value also in 
the sphere of the computerization of the 
registration. The need to make good 
archivies is of fundamental importance in 
the administration of the enormous 
architectural and artistic richness of 
our country. 
1 - THE THEORY OF CONSERVATION AND THE 
REDEFINITION OF THE RULE OF THE SURVEY: 
TOWARDS A REDEFINITION OF THE MEANING. 
The contribution of the conservative 
approach to the theory of the restoration 
and, therefore of the monument 
conservation is to be considered quite 
new, if we consider that the architecture 
and everything of what is built has 
always been an object of transformation; 
it is only with the birth of the 
historiography in the XIX that such 
attention has taken a form charaterized 
by a growth of coscience about the object 
of restoration and the concept of 
restoration. In those years we saw the 
birth of a new discipline of the 
restauration that gave life to different 
interpretation ( from the critical 
restauration of idealist origin to the 
philological one of positivist origin). 
The point of view of the approach at the 
monument is, in the last fifty years, 
quite changed, cause of the modern 
philosophical and historical disciplines. 
These ones have claimed the materiality 
of the building revaluting its  materic 
culture and have refused the big