Preface Special Issue: Lessons from the past: the evolution of seismic protection techniques in the history of builings

“Grecae magnificentiae vera admiratio extat templum Ephesiae Dianae CXX annis factum a tota Asia. In solo id palustri fecere, ne terrae motus sentiret aut hiatus timeret, rursus ne in lubrico atque instabili fondamenta tantae molis locarentur, calcatis ea substravere carbonibus, dein velleribus lanae”. With these words, Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia (XXXVI, §95), described the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the largest temples built by Greeks and one of the seven wonders in the ancient world. Recent historic studies allowed pointing out that the foundations were composed by a continuous stone plate separated from a thin layer of marshland by means of a layer of clay mixed with charcoal and ashes [Carpani, 2017]. Nowadays those layers are interpreted as a pioneering base isolation system.

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