The bell tower af the Basilica of Aquileia, built in the eleventh century, was restored by the austrian administration in 1846, 1877 and 1905-08. The restoration of the tower performed between 1905 and 1908 was promoted by the Austrian Central Commission for the study and conservation of monuments and followed the new theoretical approaches established by Alois Riegl, one of the most important Austrian art historians and theorists of restoration.
The text analyzes the works performed, described on the basis of archival records and compared with the theory of restoration of Riegl.
In the restoration there is the strict application of the theory of Riegl's thoery of values, as was paid great attention to the preservation of the value of antiquity, with the conservation of the original stone ashlars, differently from what done in previous cases which led to massive substitutions.
