Le Digital Humanities per lo studio e la comunicazione di beni culturali architettonici: il caso dei mausolei di Teodorico e Galla Placidia in Ravenna

The paper presents a series of methodological reflections on the following themes: survey, restitution, analysis and communication. The objective of the research was the critical reading of two of the most famous monuments in Ravenna and UNESCO heritage sites: the Mausoleum of Theodoric (ca. 520 AD) and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (before 450 AD). From advanced and integrated survey data, 2D graphs and 3D models were elaborated for hypothesis testing and for the multimedia communication of the scientific contents identified during the work. This second topic of the paper is part of the experiments conducted by the research group on new modes of multimedia communication, interactive and not, based on virtual models as an edutainment tool for enjoying monuments and masterpieces of cultural importance

Digital Techniques for Documenting and Preserving Cultural Heritage

In this unique collection the authors present a wide range of interdisciplinary methods to study, document, and conserve material cultural heritage. The methods used serve as exemplars of best practice with a wide variety of cultural heritage objects having been recorded, examined, and visualised. The objects range in date, scale, materials, and state of preservation and so pose different research questions and challenges for digitization, conservation, and ontological representation of knowledge. Heritage science and specialist digital technologies are presented in a way approachable to non-scientists, while a separate technical section provides details of methods and techniques, alongside examples of notable applications of spatial and spectral documentation of material cultural heritage, with selected literature and identification of future research. This book is an outcome of interdisciplinary research and debates conducted by the participants of the COST Action TD1201, Colour and Space in Cultural Heritage, 2012–16 and is an Open Access publication available under a CC BY-NC-ND licence.https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/mip_arc_cdh/1000/thumbnail.jp

Digital Techniques for Documenting and Preserving Cultural Heritage

This book presents interdisciplinary approaches to the examination and documentation of material cultural heritage, using non-invasive spatial and spectral optical technologies

"Viva Bacco e viva Amore": Bacchic Imagery in the Renaissance

The fifteenth century in Italy is often studied for its revival of antiquity, but looking at this revival through the particular lens of Bacchus and his band of ecstatic followers reveals a unique view of the complex texture of the intellectual, cultural, and artistic fabric of the Renaissance. Although Bacchus, as a god of wine and revelry, was not an obvious role model for Renaissance patrons, he appeared nonetheless in drawings, paintings, engravings, plaquettes, and sculpture, and in marriage parades, banquet entertainments, plays, and songs. This dissertation examines how and why such a god and his wild cohort could acquire such a broad appeal and what they signified to their contemporary audiences. Stepping off from Aby Warburg's insight that emotionality is a third vector of historical measurement in addition to form and content, we first explore what it was in ancient Bacchic art that appealed to Renaissance artists striving to reinvigorate their work, finding that they were drawn to its expressive realism, shown with vigorous movement and figural variety, as well as its portrayal of lassitude and voluptuous pleasure. We look also at shifts in ideas about invention, imagination, composition, and imitation, and their impact on how artists viewed this antique inheritance and found inspiration in the Bacchic figures. Philosophical concepts, especially Neoplatonic ideas of inspiration and Aristotelian notions of Necessity, are considered for their impact on the meanings gleaned from Bacchic imagery. Each member of the Bacchic retinue is then explored to determine how his or her gestural vocabulary was employed, and what meanings he or she was made to bear in new settings. The frenzied maenad, with her hints of madness and untamed eroticism, was transformed into grieving Mary Magdalenes, heroic Judiths, and dancing Salomes, or was prettified into all'antica serving girls, nymphs, and personifications. The discovery of a sleeping Ariadne, unveiled by a satyr, contributed to one of the more popular motifs of the Renaissance, which even in new contexts retained associations with the epiphany and resurrection experienced by Ariadne when she was rescued by Bacchus. Revived epithalamic traditions employed the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne as a metaphor for both the taming forces of marriage and the bittersweet aura of youth and love. The frolicking, ithyphallic satyr embodied visions not only of a lost Arcadia, but also of the balancing forces of nature that require sexuality to sustain life. Tales of Silenus' wisdom inflected Renaissance depictions of the dissipated old satyr with contemporary notions of the morosoph, or wise fool. And as a symbol of the cosmos, Pan became the leader of a revived pastoral mode, a noble prince for a restored Golden Age. As a fecund, frenzied god, Bacchus came to embody the newly awakened Neoplatonic notion of divine furor: the inspiration that fueled all transcendent thought and creative imagination. At a moment when visual artists were striving to attain the status of their poetic counterparts, Bacchus epitomized the nature of artistic frenzy as a complement to the poet's Apollonian furor. The Bacchanalian paintings commissioned for Alfonso d'Este's Camerino d'Alabastro in Ferrara were a final flourish to this revival of Bacchus (before the archaeological and mythographical rigor of the mid-sixteenth century reduced him to a stereotype). The god's associations with love and fertility enhanced the duke's self-presentation as a magnanimous, liberal, and prolific ruler. The presentation of Epicurean delights signified a true understanding of an elevated voluptas, which saw the greatest good attained through the metaphor of sensual pleasures. Titian's paintings fully materialized the energy and pathos that first attracted the early Renaissance artists to Bacchic imagery

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart”. IBA Berlin 1979 – 1987, the drawing as tool to read and disclose

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Costanzo, 1991, p.14) On the occasion of his direction of the Berlin International Bauausstellung (IBA 1979-1987) the German architect Josef Paul Kleihues referred to the fable of Antoine de Saint - Exupéry to encourage architects to awaken the values of ingenuity and imagination. He emphasized the Imago, as a point of reference and stable values at the base of human consciousness. The problem is based on the dialectic between tradition and modernity, the field of experimentation on which he himself elaborates the concept of "critical reconstruction". According to the architect, the rediscovery of the laws of the historic city is a decisive instrument for Berliners to recognize themselves in it. Another important concept which Kleihues placed at the base of his guidelines is the "poetic rationalism" presented during the Triennale di Milano exhibition entitled "The cities of the world of 1988 and the future of the metropolis". On this occasion, he maintained that "the possibility of a new rationalism exists only when the deterministic tendency is questioned by poetry". (Kleihues, 1989, p.57) Through this “poetic rationalism”, he criticizes the excessive bureaucracy that conditions and limits the creative process. One of the most interesting areas of the Berlin International Bauausstellung is the Südliche Friedrichstad. It is interesting to take into account the rules imposed by Josef Paul Kleihues about the permanence of the existing layout and the reconstruction of the continuity of the facades along the plot perimeter and to see how the architects Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas stand about these principles. The proposed study investigates their interpretation of the concept of "poetic rationalism" through drawing, considered by the author as a fundamental interpretative, creative and cognitive activity

CHANCES. Practices, Spaces and Buildings in Cities' Tranformation

CHANCES has been an international conference that was aimed to explore, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the fragile but continuous urban transformation through the effective contribution of culture, nature and technology. The aim of this conference was to provide a deeper understanding of urban transformations’ research and practices, focusing on the use, re-use, design, renovation and innovative governance and management of public spaces, urban commons and buildings. We believe that these thoughts will largely contribute to shape and increase sustainable design, construction and planning in constant cities’ transformation. Contributions could build on reflections and studies concerning current or historical approaches that are changing or drastically changed the cities we lived in

All Things Arabia

By employing the innovative lenses of ‘thing theory’ and material culture studies, this collection brings together essays focused on the role played by Arabia’s things - from cultural objects to commodities to historical and ethnographic artifacts to imaginary things - in creating an Arabian identity over time. The Arabian identity that we convey here comprises both a fabulous Arabia that has haunted the European imagination for the past three hundred years and a real Arabia that has had its unique history, culture, and traditions outside the Orientalized narratives of the West. All Things Arabia aims to dispel existing stereotypes and to stimulate new thinking about an area whose patterns of trade and cosmopolitanism have pollinated the world with lasting myths, knowledge, and things of beauty. Readership: Scholars interested in the study of the material culture of the Middle East/Arabian Peninsula and the wider public interested in the cultures of collection, connoisseurship, and (neo)orientalism(s) at large