“The Past is Never Dead. It's Not Even Past”

Abstract

In the European ancient foundation city, the past forms a constitutive part of its structure. However, it is not easily recognizable in cities like Milan, where the ruins of monuments of imperial era (as the Theater, the Amphitheater and the Circus) have been submerged by the urban stratification. The recent success of visualization systems by web (such as GoogleMaps or Bing) have highlighted a widespread need for knowledge of places, which can be satisfied through an innovative application of tools as GIS. This chapter explains how, in the virtual space-time of a webGIS, it is possible to provide specific paths, that accompany any user, even if he doesn't have specific skills, to discover the immanent remote past of the city, described by an appropriate display of its cartographic and iconographic heritage.