Reliving history: the digital reconstruction of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan

Abstract

<jats:p>&lt;p class="VARAbstract"&gt;Can we preserve cultural heritage and, consequently, the memory of the past? To answer this question, one should look at the digital revolution that the world has gone through in recent decades and analyse the complex and the dialectical relationship between cultural heritage and new technologies. Thanks to these, increasingly accurate reconstructions of archaeological sites and historical monuments are possible. The resulting digital replicas are fundamental to experience and understand cultural heritage in innovative ways: they have complex and dynamic relationships with the original objects. This research paper highlights the importance and the scientific validity of digital replicas aimed at understanding, enhancing and protecting cultural heritage. The study focuses on the virtual reconstruction of the constructive phases, from the mid-15&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; century to date, of one of the most emblematic Gothic-Renaissance buildings in the city of Milan (Italy): the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, famous worldwide for hosting Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper painting. This site proved to be an ideal case study because of its troubled and little-known history that led to numerous changes over the centuries. Thanks to a methodological approach based on the analysis of the documentary sources and three-dimensional (3D) modelling, it was possible to outline the chronological succession of the convent transformations; the way in which these overlapped the pre-existing structures was described starting from the Renaissance harmonious and organic interventions, to finally reach 18&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt;-19&lt;sup&gt;th &lt;/sup&gt;centuries inhomogeneous and incompatible additions. Finally, the research was completed by mapping the 3D models based on the sources used and their different levels of accuracy. The 3D models have thus become a valid tool for checking and verifying the reconstruction hypotheses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="VARAbstract"&gt;Highlights:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The study focused on the virtual reconstruction of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, one of the most emblematicGothic-Renaissance buildings in the city of Milan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By combining data from documentary sources, architectural treatises, period photos and digital survey, the mainbuilding phases of the convent, from the 15th century to date, were digitally reconstructed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The 3D models are enriched with information about the accuracy of the digital reconstruction, creating 3D databasesthat can be easily consulted and updated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;</jats:p>

Proceedings of the 27th Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) [Volume 1]

“…3D laser scanning has generated opportunities to develop new methods to document and analyse culturally significant buildings and sites (Balzani, Maietti, & Kühl, 2017;Dong, Zhang, & Zhu, 2020;Uplekar Krusche, 2018). Equally, 3D scan data is useful for the virtual recreation of cultural sites (Aiello & Bolognesi, 2020;Zlot et al, 2014) and to guide physical restoration processes (Siu, 2021). The accuracy and detail of 3D scan data is also useful to processes of visual representation and the virtual (re)creation of significant buildings and sites as virtual 3D environments.…”

Retraced memories - virtual reconstruction of an architectural landmark

“…Undoubtedly, the high realism of digital reconstructions raises several ethical issues related to the authenticity of replicas, and implies the need to integrate documentary sources and interpret them as stated in the London Charter the computerbased visualisation of cultural heritage (Hermon & Kalisperis, 2011;Cignoni & Scopigno, 2008;Brusaporci & Trizio, 2013;Buglio, Lardinois, & De Luca, 2015;Frommel & Schlimme, 2020). For this reason, it is essential to encourage innovative procedures for the visualization and validation of the (indeed mainly subjective) reconstructive process of a monument in a no longer existing configuration (Aiello & Bolognesi, 2020;Giovannini, 2020). These new approaches make explicit the link between the reconstructed elements and the information underlying the reconstruction (thus showing the gap between the interpretation and the original data), as well as the different levels of plausibility and uncertainty of the 3D modelled parts (Apollonio & Giovannini, 2015;Grellert, Apollonio, Martens, & Nubbaum, 2018;Demetrescu & Fanini, 2017).…”

Systematic integration of 2D and 3D sources for the virtual reconstruction of lost heritage artefacts: the equestrian monument of Francesco III d’Este (1774–1796, Modena, Italy)

“…In the last decades, the role of 3D techniques in the field of archaeological heritage has assumed, on the one hand, an increasingly importance for the web diffusion of cultural contents, public outreach and education [1][2][3][4], also thanks to different mediums of visualization [5] that improves the spread of Cultural Heritage artefacts [6]. On the other hand, 3D technologies have a key role in documenting and supporting archaeologists who deal with continuous work of restoration and their associated studies, generating 3D models for archival purposes, for conservation records [7][8][9], for 3D visualization [10][11][12][13][14] and reconstructive interpretation of lost artefacts [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. In [22], Lai et al stressed the importance to use 3D technologies as a tool to improve archaeological research and to increase the production of information from archaeological data to 4D analysis and interpretation.…”

“…Spallone [37] presented different strategies for the preservation of architectures subjected to demolition or transformation, and then focused on a case study in which critical bibliography, archival sources and digital reconstruction are combined. Besides the high number of examples of 3D surveying of architectural heritage, we highlight the contribution of research works [15][16][17][18][19]38] dealing with the virtual reconstructions of lost buildings or archaeological sites.…”