The present contribution intends to propose a possible application method to study the problem of the destruction of the historical centers, with the consequent redacting a knowledge tool for their reconstruction. The research was conducted, using as a case study the city of Amatrice, through the integration of digital restitution tools, social media and architectural reading of the few building fragments still on site. The applied methodology was based on the complementarity between the analysis of unpublished photographic material, made available by the people of the city through postcards and historical photos, and the digital reconstruction of every building in the city through the tools provided by Google Street. After the realization of a digital model related to a phase before the earthquake, it was possible to virtually reconstruct the configuration and the fronts of the destroyed buildings. The study made use of the only inspection granted during the removal of the rubble for the realization of a filmed documentation; for the compilation of the works, a scientific methodology was sought, starting from the comparison of the artefacts in relation to the historical sources, passing through the reflections related to the restorations that occurred over time. The virtual reconstruction of the historical village, starting from the medieval phases, passing through the nineteenth-century transformations and arriving at the situation of the two thousand years, was not aimed at the revival of a historical phase compared to another, but to the drafting of an instrument of knowledge preparatory to a reconstruction of the identifying characteristics of the place. The total destruction opens up before him a wide range of possibilities that should be calibrated to find a balance between the Amatrice who was and the Amatrice that will be.