Historic centres are cultural, social and economical resources for communities, but also fragile areas that have often been damaged or destroyed by earthquakes. The main challenge that Italy faces in coping with the impacts of seismic events is the reduction of vulnerabilities and exposure within these large-scale heritage-listed urban areas. This paper presents a critical overview on the emerging issues in the seismic risk reduction and conservation of historic centres in seismic-prone areas. To this end, it illustrates the contextual background of seismic risk and explores how literature and research are mainstreamed in the disaster risk reduction practice. Then, it unpacks the Italian experience in seismic risk assessment and management and identifies seven thematic areas collecting the main achievements in the fields. Emphasis is given to the state of the art on the preservation and management of historic centres, considering a wider perspective on physical, socio-economic and institutional aspects. It is envisaged that the discussion presented in this paper will form a basis for future research aimed at developing a comprehensive disaster risk reduction framework for orienting the resilience-enhancing challenges in historic centres in Italy.

历史中心是社区的文化，社会和经济资源，同时也是经常被地震破坏或破坏的脆弱地区。意大利在应对地震事件方面所面临的主要挑战是减少这些被列入遗产名录的大型城市地区的脆弱性和暴露程度。本文对地震多发地区的历史中心减少地震风险和保护中出现的新问题进行了批判性概述。为此，它阐明了地震风险的背景背景，并探讨了如何将文献和研究纳入减少灾害风险实践的主流。然后，它介绍了意大利在地震风险评估和管理方面的经验，并确定了七个主题领域，收集了该领域的主要成就。考虑到对自然，社会经济和体制方面的更广阔视野，着重于保存和管理历史中心的最新技术水平。可以预见的是，本文中的讨论将为将来的研究奠定基础，该研究旨在开发一个全面的减少灾害风险框架，以应对意大利历史中心的防灾能力增强挑战。