Fortress of Pietracassia
Lajatico (PI)
Commissioned by the City of Lajatico (PI). - Impressive ruins of a very important medieval fortress of Pisa abandoned for centuries. The structure suffers from an important degradation and particularly severe instabilities that characterize the state of conservation. At the risk of collapse the two survived towers, one square and the other one heptagonal. The masonry work, characterized by a masonry parameter of great precision and regularity is undermined by a lack of tenacity of the mortar and an excessive weight of the walls. In particular, the wall thickness of the heptagonal tower, which reaches three meters, and the inner core of the wall with a "chaotic" arrangement of the stones, prompted a breakdown of the wall mass. This generated deep vertical lesions with the detachment of large portions of walls partly collapsed and partly close to collapse. Recovery works are ongoing.
