‘Firenze Scomparsa’: the challenge of digitally reconstructing and disseminating Florence lost buildings

Computer-based visualizations are increasingly engaged to support academic research of lost or altered architectonic features. 3D modelling software have further democratized the use of digital reconstructions among scholars. However, a universal approach for visually rendering data transparency and uncertainty is yet to be achieved, despite the efforts to create best practice guidelines, such as the London Charter for the computer-based visualization of Cultural Heritage (first published in 2006).

The challenge is further complicated when it comes to disseminating these scholarly projects to the general public, usually not provided with the necessary tools to critically ascribe the digital reconstructions they see to the result of scholarly interpretation based on the available research material.

Our project, Firenze Scomparsa, is a collaboration between art historians and 3D modeling researchers involved in the digital reconstruction and dissemination via a mobile app of the lost church of San Pier Maggiore in Florence. The paper will use this case study to identify key challenges and discuss the lessons learnt from managing 3D architectural models and their related metadata and paradata within an interpretative digital reconstruction. In particular, we will highlight data accessibility, interoperability and reusability and we will focus on the potential of using ontologies in order to benefit from data that are semantically oriented, can be queried and verified in view of the project’s scalability.