An important segment of the project consisted of environmental studies, conducted in five museums in Basilicata and during four temporary exhibitions, which were included in the programmes of Matera 2019 European Capital of Culture.
The 2018-2020 pilot plan of scientific investigations and monitoring was developed to create an environmental control plan that can be replicated in all the other Lucanian museums, including some urban rupestrian sites, which are part of a route that makes Matera an open-air museum.
These sites, in fact, are part of the Matera museums thanks to the fact that they are containers, in a natural and urban context, of historical and artistic assets of various kinds, such as wall paintings, wooden furnishings, stone fragments and metal objects.
The aim of these environmental studies was to identify conservation and exposure measures to improve the protection of this precious heritage. But that is not all: these annual surveys are a snapshot of the current climatic and microclimatic situation and can serve as an important term of comparison for monitoring changes in environmental conditions and, consequently, conservation, linked to climate change.
All the data collected in the museums during the period 2018-2019, following the Environmental Data Sheet protocol, have been uploaded to the Risk Map database, which can be accessed through an accreditation request to the Carta del Rischio survey (cartadelrischio.beniculturali.it).

In particular, the environmental study and monitoring activities were carried out in Matera, at the National Museum of Lanfranchi Palace, which houses a permanent collection of modern and contemporary works of art, and at the Domenico Ridola Archaeological Museum, which houses archaeological assets of incomparable beauty and importance.
In the latter museum, conservation cataloguing of vases in the Funerary Artifacts of Magna Graecia and Rizzon Collection sections was also conducted, as well as extraordinary maintenance and restoration of some vases.
In addition, in connection with the Matera 2019 temporary exhibitions, along with environmental surveys, monitoring systems in real time were developed for the safe transport of the works art by the company WSense s.r.l. spinoff of University Sapienza Rome.
Outside the city of Matera, environmental studies and monitoring activities were conducted at two archaeological museums in the Lucania region: the National Museum of Metaponto and the National Archaeological Museum of the Siritide in Policoro. The investigations included in the exhibition halls and the rich deposits that are part of them.
Finally, the exhibition conditions were monitored at the National Archaeological Museum Domenico Ridola in Matera on the occasion of a temporary exhibition Blind Sensorium, paradox of the Anthropocene; at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art at Palazzo Lanfranchi in Matera on the occasion of Trama doppia. Maria Lai-Antonio Marras and Rinascimento visto da sud; and finally, at the National Archaeological Museum in Metaponto, the new exhibition rooms were monitored, opened on the occasion of the exhibition Riempire il vuoto. Symmetries from M.C. Escher to contemporaries.

Conservation and restoration of pottery and archaeological objects

In the museums of Matera, Metaponto and Policoro, in addition to environmental monitoring, numerous conservation catalogues were carried out, accompanied by photographic documentation of the objects displayed in the halls, or kept in storage.
During this activity, a number of artefacts in need of urgent extraordinary maintenance and restoration were identified and carried out within the project.