On building site in early modern Ferrara. Two archival sources about construction process in the second half of XVIth century

Two unpublished archival sources from the Estense Archive give us some interesting elements about the building site practice in Ferrara in second half of XVIth century. The first source is a letter written in 1560 by a ducal officer at the head of Munizioni e Fabbriche, the office that controlled all the building activities in the city, to the Duke Alfonso II d’Este to justify the orders given to craftsmen on building sites. It is a very important information source, because it explains a particular building site process and gives us a lot of information about practical building techniques. The second one, is a building regulation written in 1572 about the ducal officer behaviour on building site and about practical organisation and economic management of building activity in the city. These sources give us a clear portrait of design practices in relation to city transformation, in particular about specific aspects and roles: \n- human behaviour: the relationship between patron and architect, between architect and craftsmen; - economic aspects: purchase, provision and management of construction materials and manpower; - construction processes: application, transformation and innovation of building technique and its relation with practical treatises of the time.