Fornaci per campane a Sarzana: il caso di S. Andrea

[Autom. eng. transl.] Under the current floor, the parish church of S. Andrea in Sarzana preserves the archaeological remains of the oldest phases of life of the place of worship, founded at the end of the 11th century. The area, commonly and improperly called the 'crypt', accessible to the public, was created following the restoration and redevelopment works carried out by the then Superintendence of Monuments between 1969 and 1973, which unfortunately led to the loss of most of the stratified deposit. Thanks to the intervention, in 1973, of the Research Group of Genoa coordinated by prof. Tiziano Mannoni, the remains of two medieval bell furnaces were saved, among the first archaeologically investigated in Italy and published in 1975 by F. Bonora in "Archeologia Medievale". In February 2019, due to the bad state of conservation of the archaeological deposit relating to the production plants, the complete cleaning of the excavated area was carried out in order to carry out the study of the archaeological evidence, updating the considerations on these important production plants. The main novelty presented in this contribution concerns the definition of the stratigraphic relationship between the two bell furnaces and their functioning, with new interpretations in the light of current knowledge on bell furnaces.