The structural and functional transformation underwent from a Italian medieval church, the San Francesco church

The present work deals about the time development of the structure of a Romanesque church (San Francesco church) built in a city of an Italian north region (Alessandria) (Figure 1). The interest about this ancient building is because from its construction (XII century) to the last century the San Francesco church underwent several functional and structural transformations that strongly changed its original configuration. This construction was built within a Franciscan convent, but in the next centuries it was partially changed for “practical” reasons and in the XVIII and XIX centuries it was used as depot and military hospital. During the last two centuries the church underwent the main changes, between which the addition of a new floor. Finally in an actual restoration project, designed by the Public Administration, the demolition of the XIX century floor is proposed. After an historical investigation, the dimensional, technological and structural characteristics of the church are analyzed to collect the necessary data for the next structural analysis and the successive sequential finite element analysis of the church. The numerical analysis is used to simulate the different structural configurations adopted by the construction during its history.