Emphasizes that interdisciplinary research should be carried out before proceding with the restoration of historic architecture. Examines several Neapolitan baroque church domes damaged in 17th-c. earthquakes and rebuilt, late 17th-18th cs. Also critiques the late 20th-c. restoration of two domed German buildings (i.e., the Reichstag, Berlin; and Frauenkirche, Dresden) damaged in World War II. ;