Table of contents

This volume collects the scientific contributions of all researchers participating the Second Edition of Florence Heri-Tech International Conference.

Under the patronage of the University of Florence and organized with the support of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Florence Heri-Tech gathered researchers and experts in the field of "heritage science and related technologies" to disseminate their recent research at an international level as well as to draw new inspiration.

The Second Edition follows the great success of the first one, which took place in 2018 in Florence (Italy) and which was greatly appreciated by participants as demonstrated by a satisfaction level higher than 90%.

List of Conference General Chairs, Honorary Chairs and Technical Program Committee are availble in this pdf.

CD ETA – Collaborative Digitization of Natural and Cultural Heritage

Franca Fauci, Alessandro Monti

The Foundation for Research and Innovation of the University of Florence (FRI) is partner of a five-year Interreg Project "CD-ETA – Collaborative Digitization of Natural and Cultural Heritage", whose Lead partner is Euroregion Pleven-Olt, a cross border association of the municipalities from Pleven District (Bulgaria) and the municipalities from Olt (Romania).

The partnership is balanced both in terms of regions and competencies of the participating organizations: Estonian War Museum (Estonia); University of Patras (Greece); Foundation for Research and Innovation (Italy); Harghita County Council (Romania); Regional Development Agency of Gorenjska (Slovenia); Association of Municipalities of the Ribera Alta Region, (Spain); Foundation Saint Mary the Royal of Historic Heritage (Spain).

The main objective of the project is to improve the implementation and the adoption of policies on digitization for natural and cultural heritage, through the identification of best practices and the drawing up of 8 Action Plans, one for each member state partner.

This contribution is a wake-up call to custodians of cultural heritage to get ready and prepare for the next platform – the 3D and 4D experiences of the nascent Mirrorworld. Built upon the first generations of online experience, the sprawling communication platform of the World Wide Web, and driven by the ubiquitous reach of social networks and online gaming, the Mirrorworld will breach the glass ceiling of 2D experiences to draw us into a fully functioning 3D environment. Public institutions that manage cultural heritage for visitors, such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMS), are ideally placed to seed the spatial communications network that will drive the new platform. Despite the formidable challenges to be surmounted, it is up to custodians of cultural heritage to become proactive in building the Mirrorworld rather than to wait for third party actors to advance commercial interests with imitation culture, simulated histories, or made-up stories. As gatekeepers of cultural artifacts, GLAMs have the capability, the experience, and even the responsibility to tell their stories forcefully, accurately and in fully-functioning 4D.

The HAP4MARBLE project was funded by the European Commission within the call H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Grant Agreement n. 655239). The goal of the project was to develop an innovative conservation treatment for marble artworks exposed outdoors, which suffer from several deterioration processes predicted to be worsened by future climate change.

The project aims to create an intelligent system that allows you to compare different 3D images, from scans in different periods, and that lets to understand changes to the artworks. A very high precision check-up system that allows you to intervene in time in the restoration of the artwork

All papers published in this volume of IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.

• Type of peer review: Double-blind

• Conference submission management system: Easychair (https://easychair.org)

• Number of submissions received: 168

• Number of submissions sent for review: 168

• Number of submissions accepted: 120

• Acceptance Rate (Number of Submissions Accepted / Number of Submissions Received X 100): 71.4%

• Average number of reviews per paper: 2

• Total number of reviewers involved: 80

• Any additional info on review process:

• Contact person for queries:

Prof. Eng Rocco Furferi

DIEF, Department of Industrial Engineering of University of Florence

Rocco.furferi@unifi.it

Temperature and relative humidity are two parameters that can hugely hamper artwork preservation, leading to different types of degradation. In scientific literature and regulatory guidelines, two methodologies are used to assess suitable conditions for artifacts and potential risks. These two methods are generally alternatively applied, missing a comprehensive evaluation of indoor suitability of artwork preservation. The concurrent application of both approaches can help in the choice of the best strategy or design of HVAC systems to improve microclimate to artwork preservation. In this work, a validated dynamic model of a room in an Italian museum is presented as a case study. The analysis of indoor temperature and relative humidity profiles for a typical winter and summer period shows the importance of the application of both methodologies to identify potential risks for artworks. Thus, for both periods, new strategies improving indoor microclimate and leading to a most suitable environment for artwork are tested and successfully identified.

A scientific interdisciplinary team promoted an integrated archaeometric study of selected frescoed tombs within a project funded by Archaeological Museum of Paestum (Capaccio, Salerno, southern Italy). By using a multi-disciplinary approach, a comparative study of the pigments used on the representative painted slab tombs was carried out with the aim of identifying specific markers and unveiling the new features of the executive techniques. The investigated tombs, displayed at the museum or stored in the deposits, come from Hellenistic and Lucan necropolis. The preliminary investigation here discussed involved several nondestructive analytical techniques (IRR, UV fluorescence, VIL, FORS, ER-FTIR, Raman and XRF). This multi-analytical research was applied on the pictorial surface of the following frescoed tombs: the well-known Tomb of the Diver from Tempa del Prete necropolis; the Tomb of the Palmettes from Arcioni necropolis; the tombs T314 and T210 from Gaudo necropolis; the tombs T6, T23, T21, T76, T20, T11, T12 from Andriuolo necropolis and the tombs T109 and T110 from Santa Venera necropolis, were investigated. The archaeometric results shed light on some markers of a local artisanal tradition developed in the Greek colony of Paestum around 500-475 BC.

An Arabic Papyrus sheet stored at the Egyptian National Library and Archives was previously placed on unknown secondary support, and interleaved between two glass sheets enclosed with adhesive tape. This papyrus has various deterioration issues especially in the upper section where there is a large embedded stain causing the papyrus to stick to the secondary support and the glass sheet. Conservation treatments conducted involved cleaning, fibre alignment and rehousing, scientific investigations including visible light microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM-EDS) were conducted to identify materials involved. A lack of information in the historical records about the excavation and previous conservation treatments increase the importance of the research. The analysis showed that the secondary support is gelatine and Arabic text was written in carbon ink. The gelatine support was successfully removed from the papyrus and the papyrus document was re -housed.

The conservation of historical buildings in Cairo represents a complex matter, influenced by several key factors such as the cultural context, the intrinsic features of a vast and heterogeneous architectural heritage and the environmental conditions. An Italian-Egyptian research group is working on the peculiarities of the monument conservation in old Cairo, concerning the material decay in relation to the anthropic and climatic factors and the pollution levels. Monument vulnerability levels strongly need to be identified and systematized to delineate adequate programs of control, management and intervention. One of the main topics developed is the study of the deterioration mechanisms of stone materials in medieval walls, connected to the capillary damp rising from the ground, common in Egypt, always accentuated by the combination with other factors. The research examines some historic buildings in different areas (El-Gamaleya, El Darb El Ahmar, Al Qarafah). The variety of materials has led to limiting the first phases of the study to the masonry materials, with special attention to the limestone blocks. The intersection of data collected on the field with those relating to underground water and environmental factors has allowed us to focus on some aspects of the problem. Some syntheses have been proposed on the main mechanisms affecting the studied material in situ and the necessary directions for further investigation have been identified. Our first results highlight the relationship existing between the environmental thermo-hygrometric excursions and the capillary water rising from the ground, which affect the evaporation speed, the imbibition levels and the crystallization of salts inside and on the rock surface. The studied rocks display intense weathering (decohesion, dissolution) due to a number of chemical and physical phenomena, responsible for a generalized decay of the mechanical properties of the original material. The observed widespread phenomena of carbonate sulphation also suggest the atmospheric contribution of particulate matter and polluting compounds. The mineralogical and physical characterization of the limestone allowed us to estimate its resistance to the decay processes.

The need for care often shown by ageing cultural heritage and the circumstantial lack of dedicated budget are increasingly calling for smart monitoring solutions to shift the maintenance paradigm from reactive-preventive to predictive. Monitoring artworks poses additional issues with respect to the more common industrial solutions, such as aesthetics, dealing with unusual materials, remote locations (archaeology), etc. In this scope, the "Dietrofront" statue in Florence, by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, is an emblematic instance. Installed on a traffic roundabout, it comprises four travertine blocks, one of which hangs 5 m above the ground supported by a steel structure which has shown relevant symptoms of damage during the 2006 restoration works. During a later intervention, we seized the opportunity to equip the structure with a three IoT sensing devices, so as to monitor thermo-hygrometric conditions, inclination and vibrations of the structure. Various issues common to outdoor monuments have been faced, such as the need for visual non-intrusiveness and the unavailability of power supply. A small wireless sensor network was designed and installed, also exploiting an existing room inside the nearby mediaeval city gate. The network is fully solar-powered by photo-voltaic modules integrated on both the statue and the gate and not visible from the street. The data obtained have been analysed and compared to a simple lumped-parameters structural model, so as to estimate the relevance of traffic-induced vibration on the steel structure. The risk of water vapour condensation has also been assessed.

Various imaging techniques are used to visualise issues regarding a painting's appearance before, during and after conservation treatments, i.e. visible light photography (VIS) raking light photography (RAK), ultraviolet fluorescence photography (UVF) and reflectance transformation imaging (RTI). However, these techniques cannot always visualise and/or quantify conservation issues. This paper presents a new approach: colour, gloss, topography imaging (CGT). CGT's applicability as a non-invasive tool for evaluating and documenting conservation treatments in comparison to VIS, UVF, RAK and RTI is discussed. Applying this to case studies with different conservation dilemmas illustrates the technique's potential and drawbacks. CGT can visualise issues such as gloss variations, resulting from (previous) cleaning tests, (partial) varnish removal, and possibly dirt and material degradation. Furthermore, CGT can elucidate topographical issues such as bulging, and losses, and also visualise high-frequency surface variations (e.g. canvas weave and crack pattern). This results in an improvement of documenting a painting's condition, and the evaluation of treatments and their effects on the visual appearance may be quantified. In conclusion, this research shows that CGT is able to better visualise texture, gloss and colour information than existing techniques like technical photography, facilitating a more precise documentation and localisation of previous and current conservation treatments.

The motivation for our research is the huge demand for registration of multimodal datasets in restorers practice. With an increasing number of various screening modalities, each analysis built on the acquired dataset starts with the registration of images acquired from different scanners and with varying levels of mutual correspondence. There is currently no well-suited state of the art method for this task. There are many existing approaches, i.e. based on control points or mutual information, but they do not provide satisfying (subpixel) precision, thus the registration is very often realized manually in Adobe Photoshop or any similar tool. Another popular option is to use scanners able to produce registered datasets by design. During the last 10 years, datasets from these devices have extended available analytical techniques the most.

In our research, we focus on solving the mentioned registration task. In [1] we concluded that the work with misregistered modalities is possible but limited. Now we present results of our experiments challenging these limits and conditions under which we can precisely register data from different modalities. The achieved results are promising and allow usage of more complex artificial neural networks (ANN) for dataset analysis e.g. [2]. We describe the construction of registration layers for estimation of shift, rotation and scale and a useful strategy and parametrization for ANN optimizer.

This contribution focuses the attention on an innovative approach in diagnostics of paintings, based on the combine use of two imaging techniques named Hypecolorimetric Multispectral Imaging (HMI) and Pulse Compression Thermography (PuCT) applied to a 15^th century wall painting, attributed to the Italian artist Antonio del Massaro, also known as Pastura. HMI technique is based on the simultaneous exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum from the ultraviolet to the near infrared region. The acquisition, made under a standard metric, allows for characterizing the investigated surfaces in a more detailed way than the standard colorimetry. The system transforms any spectra in the range 300-1000nm into sevenfold hypecolorimetric coordinates. HMI guarantees very high radiometric (better than 95%) and colorimetric precision (better than ΔE = 2). PuCT is a thermography technique based on the use of coded modulated heating stimuli in combination with the pulse-compression technique. A PuCT scheme, based on coded LED excitation capable of optimizing the estimation of the impulse responses compared to the state-of-the-art PuCT literature has also been proposed. The combined use of HMI and PuCT recently revealed its potentiality in the investigation of important panel paintings by highlighting hidden details, mapping the conservation status, characterizing painting materials, etc. in a completely non-invasive way. Their combined capabilities are here tested on a wall painting representing the Madonna with the Child and the Saints Jerome and Francis, which was investigated during the restoration in the Laboratory in order to supply information about the materials and techniques.

This article aims to examine the architecture and characteristics of sculptures at the Po Ramé temple in Ninh Thuan province, Vietnam. There are the statues of Po Ramé himself, the queen Bia Su Can, the queen Bia Su Cih, a Nandin cow, a linga and a kut depicted more meaningfully. This provides clear assessment of preservation works that have been completed at the contemporary temple. In practice, those initiatives of the conservation effort figure out very first achievements that are definitely useful for improvement later on. Therefore, potential directions of preserving those heritages are proposed respectively from short, medium and long term in the future.

Contemporary society is characterized by changes that affect the way we interact with the surrounding environment, in everyday life as well as in the fruition of Cultural Heritage. We are witnessing digital transformations that change the methods of communication and offer new forms of information and dissemination of knowledge, through technological devices that improve the quality and experience of use as well as ensuring monitoring, enhancement and protection of the Heritage. Technological innovations, combined with new forms of interaction and dissemination of information that respect and guarantee accessibility and usability, become essential factors in order to support new ways of awareness and knowledge of culture. The paper gives an overview of digital and robotic systems able to establish new forms of dialogue and promotion of knowledge, through an interaction aimed at accessibility, inclusion and definition of new forms of shared and participatory creativity in which different knowledge and experiences converge. Through a critical-analytical analysis of these systems it will be possible to define the role of design in the configuration of new forms of communication and modes of interaction in order to improve the enhancement and enjoyment of Cultural Heritage. The new possibilities dictated by technological innovation represent the development tools for new models and processes of redefinition of the Cultural Heritage sector and design as an innovator becomes the "tool" for connecting the user, the technology and the context in which it benefits, thus increasing the experiential value and the dissemination of content to a wider audience.

After the earthquake that struck the Emilia-Romagna Region in 2012, the need to activate efficient procedures for heritage conservation emerged. This paper presents a procedure for the integrated documentation of cultural heritage, starting from the current evaluation procedures, standards and tools for surveying seismic damage, namely the Form A (churches) and Form B (palaces) forms used by MiBAC (Ministry for Cultural Heritage). By adopting current tools, several information and details related to the historical, geo-morphological, stratified and structural data are lost. Starting from ongoing PhD research coordinated by the DIAPReM Centre of the University of Ferrara in collaboration with the Agenzia per la Ricostruzione dell'Emilia-Romagna-Sisma 2012, this contribution aims to deepen integrated survey procedures and management of digital tools. This contribution presents the overall methodological approach and a possible application on the Teatro Borgatti in Cento, Ferrara. Therefore, analysing the current scenario and State of the Art, a preliminary assessment of multilevel interpretation of damaged heritage will be illustrated as well as a possible management of seismic risk developing an interoperable and integrated BIM platform.

Wireless sensors to monitor the state of the health of a civil structure could be widely adopted as a prompt and automatic solution to safeguard the cultural heritage and to guarantee safety. Nowadays, sensors are supplied by the electric grid or batteries, but in both cases some issues can occur. Batteries need to be recharged or replaced, thus increasing the operating cost of maintenance. The Energy Harvesting concerns with those actions focused on the exploitation of low-power, but widespread available, ambient energy sources, which otherwise would be normally wasted. In particular, the harvesting of vibrational kinetic energy could be a valid solution to the abovementioned problems, because of its large presence due to the anthropic activities and because it may overcome the strict rules to which historical sites often have to obey. Here a kinetic energy harvesting device based on magnetostrictives rods is presented. Its behavior is experimentally verified and discussed.

The Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) may be a relevant technique to monitor historical buildings, masonry, bridges, etc. It becomes even more important if it can be applied in a continuous way, once incorporated in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), being able to provide data in an automatic and endless mode without any human intervention. Of course, WSN needs a power source, a role prevalently held by batteries. However, this solution has several issues: it is not eco-friendly and needs a periodic replacement hence increasing costs and reducing the SHM spread. The Energy Harvesting (EH) is a very promising technique to supply WSN. It converts the environmental energy into electrical energy allowing its local accumulation, within the sensor node, in supercapacitor or rechargeable batteries. Anthropic environments are plenty of energy (photovoltaic, kinetic, etc) but this is a non-continuous source and then an energy balance could highlight the suitability of an EH solution. This work is aimed to present a clear picture of EH for SHM by considering all the previous elements in the context of cultural heritage. The result is the definition of specific applications in which those WSNs, based on EH, could be competitive with respect to more traditional technologies.

The survey project of the Amerigo Vespucci is part of a research line that DiDA, Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, developed through an experience of collaboration and partnership with the Department of Defense. For more than two years, the Department has been involved in the study of the Cascine park, in Florence, analyzing the architectures of historical value, with a particular focus on the Scuola di Guerra Aerea. The documentation of the architectural heritage received in recent years an innovative technological boost, which led to the development of new modern methodologies of investigation. It is possible to apply integrated survey methods not only to immovable assets such as historical buildings, which abounds in our country, but also to movable ones, included vessels. By now, the processes of data registration and graphical restitution of the survey, both laser-scanner and photogrammetric, are functioning and consolidated, and can therefore be applied in research projects, if the appropriate considerations on the specific asset typology of the subject of study are taken. The application of specific instruments in support of the survey and architectonic representation enables us to achieve increasingly accurate results, engaging multiple aspects of the structure under study. The project investigating the Nave Scuola Amerigo Vespucci allows to expand the current knowledge on the sailboat in order to provide, through survey methods and architectonic representation, the documentation necessary to conduct future renovations and wood restorations. The aim of the present research is to create a digital database that, similarly to those used for buildings of historical value, would facilitate the management of this excellent asset of the Italian Navy.

Dynamic simulation is increasingly adopted in the preventive conservation of cultural heritage as an advanced method to investigate strategies for mitigating the climate-induced degradation. The conservation of paper collections is strongly interrelated with the relative humidity of the air, as organic-hygroscopic materials act as buffers on relative humidity fluctuations while being vulnerable to moisture-induced damage. In the dynamic simulation of the microclimate within library and archival storage facilities, it is thus fundamental to include the hygrothermal interaction between the building and its hygroscopic content. The hygroscopic behaviour of paper collections can be modelled by hygrothermal tools such as those of the HAM-family (Heat, Air and Moisture), used to simulate simultaneous heat and mass transfers through porous envelope materials. This research aims at investigating the use of the HMWall model coupled with the software IDA ICE (Indoor Climate and Energy) to simulate of the 1-D heat and moisture transfer through a single wall made of paper. A literature survey was carried out to collect the available hygrothermal properties of modern and historical papers. Sensitivity analysis was used to identify the most relevant hygrothermal parameters in the simulation of moisture gradients across the paper wall. Moreover, the number of sub-layers in the paper wall model was found to significantly affect the internal distribution of moisture gradients. The use of the HMWall model was then tested in the simulation of the hygroscopic behaviour of a single paper wall in both steady-state and transient conditions. Finally, a simplified model able to preserve the accuracy of the results was proposed with the purpose of reducing the computation effort that a high-resolution model could involve if implemented in whole buildings. This study represents the first step towards the application of the HMWall model for the simulation of the indoor climate of library repositories.

In museums, indoor air quality plays a fundamental role in the visitors and staff well-being as well as in the deterioration processes of the exhibit objects. Due to some complaints dealing with poor air quality conditions reported by the occupants, a preliminary survey in some rooms of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence was carried out. To assess indoor temperature, relative humidity, chemical and microbiological pollutants in the museum, a methodology of investigation and evaluation of the results was defined and applied to several rooms of the Gallery. The survey aim is to underline the presence of critical issues in order to determine the pollutant concentration and compare the sampled values with the limits reported in Italian standards, technical regulation and guidelines. The preliminary results can be used to plan a deepen investigation with a more detailed sampling of specific pollutants. In this paper the results regarding a representative room are shown and discussed.

In recent years, constant progress has been made with regard to wood-dating techniques. In Italy, both the number and length of dendrochronological reference chronologies have increased so that by now the last 10,000 years are almost completely covered. This indispensable dating method has provided new ways for studying archaeological and prehistoric finds. New technologies have remarkably improved the sampling techniques, which today, in most cases, are very effective and non-evasive. Modern software now allows easy data management and statistical analyses. Apart from dendrochronology, the diffusion of isotope analysis has also had great impetus. With regard to radiocarbon dating, the calibration curve has been enriched by new data, and several peaks of cosmic emissions have been identified that, in future, can be instrumental in improving dating precision. Apart from radiocarbon, the isotope analyses of O, H and Sr, especially if linked with dendrochronology, allow to refine the information regarding dating and, in many cases, permits to determine the timber's provenance and even to define precisely the environmental conditions for the growth of the tree, from which the wood has been obtained. Today, finally, we can assert that all wood can be dated. Only the precision of dating still varies but constant progress is being made in that regard, too.

This work describes the experimental evidence of the deformation induced on a XVI century panel painting by climate uncontrolled fluctuations and on structural replicas under controlled laboratory conditions. The objects under measurement have a very thin wooden support (6 mm), caused by thinning and cradling of the original artefact during a restoration made at the beginning of the XX century. This kind of artefacts are very susceptible to suffer mechanical damage.

The data of experiments carried out on the panel and in laboratory conditions show a characteristic behavior, similar to bimetallic strip warp and an interaction between hygroscopic asymmetry and mechanical asymmetry, inducing a peculiar stress dynamic in the interface wood-paint layer during climate fluctuations.

In collaboration with the conservators involved in the restoration process, the effect of buffer hygroscopic systems on the warping has been studied.

Lighting cultural heritage is a complex task that requires considering the conservation needs of the exhibits and visitors' visual comfort. However, these needs are often in contrast. In addition, whenever the exhibitions are displayed inside historical buildings, the task further complicates, as lighting designers must face and respect the architectural character of the host building. They have two mean of work: static and dynamic analysis. The former uses the Daylight Factor (DF) while the latter requires a prolonged and expensive measurement campaign. Both analyses present advantages and shortcomings: the DF approach is easy and fast, but it implies many oversimplifications whereas the annual approach provides accurate results but is time and money-consuming. In this paper the authors analyse a case study with both methods. The case study is the Cetacea's Gallery of the Charterhouse of Calci (PI). The findings of this research demonstrate that the annual approach is preferable, despite its costs, and that the static approach should be used just for first instances analyses. The research pointed out the necessity of a standardized procedure of evaluation that would allow lighting designers to confront possible interventions and find the most adequate to solve the conservation and comfort issues of the case in exam.

In this contribution, we present a multiscale and multidisciplinary VR architecture that aims at creating a common environment where cultural heritage and chemistry meet in order to strengthen the role already played by chemistry in the process of restoration of cultural goods. Our aim is to create a user friendly platform where experts of both fields can share data and ideas in a direct way, in order to achieve deeper insights into cultural goods combining the scientific and historical points of view. As a case study we present the 3D reconstruction of the "Sala degli Stemmi", which is one of the two historical rooms at Palazzo della Carovana in Pisa, presenting a number of artworks that underwent a process of chemical analysis and restoration in 2012. The whole architecture has been developed using the Unity game engine, and it is usable with HTC Vive headsets. The implementation of the VR environment and the potential applications, from both the scientific and educational points of view, are discussed in some detail.

The present paper deals with the technic using the terrestrial laser scanning survey (TLS) in the restoration and conservation of the shared built cultural heritage in Algeria. The cross-section method, that was the skeleton of our surveys, is applied by using directly 3D meshing models.

The project described in this article was motivated by the need to document some of key buildings, that looks very venerable, in the city of Setif in Algeria: The Mosque of El Attik minaret, the mausoleum of Scipion, and the statute of the fountain of Fouara.

This statue which is made of marble was realized by Francis de St Vidal in 1899 that represents a nymph which is a part of the fountain, publicly displayed in the center of the city's main plaza. On 18 December 2018, a man has deteriorated the statute. Following the day of the incident, our team has been called to use a previous scanner laser survey of the nymph that was stored in our cultural heritage monument database in order to help the restoration of the missing part of the nymph (the face and the breast). As a matter of fact, the original laser scanning survey provided a helpful and accurate details to support the restoration of the nymph.

If the experience of Ain fouara show all the interest of this technology not only in the digital archiving of 3D models generated; the digitization of The Mosque of El Attik minaret and the mausoleum of Scipion highlights the effective use of 3D meshing models obtained, in the study of the mechanical behaviours. This preventive approach is useful in other studies of shared cultural built heritage.

Preventive and temporal planning of conservation is rather difficult to perform, especially concerning monumental stone buildings; the choices are often made after the degradation phenomena have already started. Many studies are looking for the reasons for this 'resistance'. In particular the present study, the result of a doctorate research, is focused on the most operational aspects: • quantifying the residual effectiveness of water-repellent protective agents used in past restorations; • providing elements in the drafting of maintenance plans for monumental heritage; • verifying where critical conservation elements reside. The test site has been the monumental complex formed by the Cathedral of San Zeno and the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte in Pistoia, where the Contact Sponge Water Absorption Test (UNI 11432:2011), typically used as treated/untreated test was employed on three lithological types (white marble, serpentine and Tuscan grey sandstone) as comparison test between treatments carried out at different knows times. The test campaign was conducted by Mila Martelli with the involvement of Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape; University of Florence DiDA, DST-LAM, Department of Chemistry and, in the phase of organization of the monitoring, with the involvement of Dr. Maria Jose' Ybañez Worboys, art restorer. The results of this research must be read in consideration of the fact that it is an ex-post survey, for which not all factors have been kept under control from the beginning, but for which it was possible to make assumptions. This study illustrates the methods and the first test results obtained which show a rather rapid decline in the effectiveness of water-repellent treatments, already a few years after their application.

Imaging Spectroscopic techniques, also known as hyperspectral imaging, have been utilized in museums and conservation laboratories for documentation purposes and in support of restoration treatments on different types of artworks and archaeological objects. For more than a decade, several studies and research projects have been devoted to customize imaging spectroscopic instrumentation and methodologies to the specific needs of art conservation and applications in the museum context. Other issues arise such as the need to develop new image processing software, including the mosaicking of image-cubes, new pigment identification and mapping methods, visualization, and archiving of the results. The present communication reports the data obtained on two canvas paintings made by Picasso in 1917, presently in the permanent collection of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. The hyperspectral data have been used to document his artistic technique and to define the chemical composition of the palette. In addition, these data supported the surface observations of the morphology and crack patterns of the paint layers in order to get a better understanding of the damage found. This study was carried out in the framework of an inter-institutional research project aimed to gain an insight into the failure mechanisms of modern and contemporary paintings.

In preventive conservation of cultural heritage, regrettably, only a few concrete examples of conservation and maintenance plans for monumental assets are available. This is attributable both to the particularity of each case, which makes it difficult to draw up a standard conservation plan and to the difficulty of finding specific data to program the cyclicity of the interventions, which requires us to resort almost exclusively to continuous monitoring of monuments. On the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte in Pistoia, after a major restoration carried out on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000, a series of conservation interventions on various fronts have been repeated from 2000 to today. This case was deemed particularly interesting precisely because of this peculiar palimpsest of documented interventions and has, therefore, become the subject of a doctoral research (conducted in collaboration between the University of Florence and the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape), focused on the in situ evaluation of the durability of water-repellent treatments on stone. Starting from the results already obtained with the tests of 2108, and collected in the doctoral thesis, was organized a monitoring plan of water repellent treatments commonly used on white marble, serpentine and Tuscan grey sandstone. The monitoring data should thus merge into the assessments on which the Monument Conservation Plan is founded. This essay presents the choice of the monitoring plan, the designing of test points, the performed treatments, and the planning of the monitoring; it also shows the expected results and how datasets will converge into the drafting and management of the conservation plan. As a result, the study provides useful promptings for implementing a 'final scientific report' and a Conservation Plan and, in general, it deepens knowledge on preventive conservation and contributes to the systematization of data for real usefulness for the maintenance of monuments.

A data management system has been created for the 4-year research project to manage the results of the study of the wall paintings by Gino Severini in fve Swiss churches (https://www.stluc.ch/). The project involves art historical and scientifc research to investigate painting materials and techniques. The data produced by the multidisciplinary team is vast and varied and is archived in a database (Db) designed to act both as a fle repository and as an exchange platform. The documentation is based on a 3D survey carried out with stereo photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning. The Db contains data sheets describing 'entities' which can be physical objects with cultural signifcance (e.g. a wall painting) or the structures containing them (e.g. the church). It is possible to establish hierarchical relationships between entities, e.g. the church, the apse, one of the paintings in the apse etc.. There are no limits to the number of sub-entities that can be created and nested one in the other recursively (as folders and sub-folders). In this way, the Db structure can register any type of activity involving the heritage by collecting all the documentation and data produced at all levels. Data includes vector drawings that are recorded as tables in the Db and can be visualized as maps. These allow the linking of any fle and data sheet, providing immediate access to information starting from the map. Data entry is carried out by the professionals creating it, i.e. the project team members. The system has a client-server architecture based on PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension server side and is currently accessed by the team through a front-end application based on Access and a cartographic application based on QuantumGIS. The challenge and the innovation of this system is to allow professionals from the diferent disciplines within the research groups to safely enter and access data working with sophisticated profled privileges while the project is on-going. Once the project is completed, in an 'Open science' framework, data will be accessible to common users and to specialists. The Severini project is in its second year and currently two of the fve churches have been studied. The paper will discuss the challenges encountered, the solutions developed, and the potentiality and fexibility of the data model designed.

In recent years there has been growing interest in the development of devices and software packages that allow museum decision-makers to manage the environmental conditions in collections and estimate the evolution of degradation of objects. A system able to monitor the environmental conditions but also to provide warnings and recommendations about failure boundaries would optimize conservation actions and strategies thus ensuring proper conservation of the collections in the long term.

CollectionCare project aims to develop an innovative and affordable decision support system for the preventive conservation of cultural objects in small and medium-sized museums by combining research and technological advances in monitoring systems (sensor nodes), wireless communications, cloud computing, big data, and material degradation models.

Validation and demonstration activities for the CollectionCare system will be carried out in six different European museums. To this end, communication efforts will be developed to promote the importance and applicability of these technologies in the conservation of cultural objects. All this in order to increase citizens' awareness of the importance of preventive approaches for the conservation of the European cultural heritage.

The graphic vandalism is considered one of the most important topics in the field of conservation of cultural heritage. The most widespread means used for the acts of vandalism are the felt-tip pens and the aerosol paints. These tools irreversibly damage the stone substrates, changing their appearance and conservation state. The aim of this article is to compare and characterize four different cleaning approaches in terms of their efficacy and invasiveness in the removal of the specific brand spray used as dirtying material.

The aims of this research is to analysis a Caribbean historic timber house using nondestructive techniques (NDT). The high cultural and historic value that have the timber buildings in the Caribbean and the necessity to preserve them as intact as possible, make NDTs to gain importance at the moment to selected the method to preserver and assess a historical structures in order to survive damages arising from several reasons including damaged by time. The selected techniques concern the measurement of some physical/mechanical properties and condition. The NDT analyses have been grouped under four major: visual inspection, optical, ultrasound, and electromagnetic. For analysis was used: Rinntech Resistograph model R650-ED, FLIR System model T420 for Infrared thermography (IRT), ARBOTOM for tomography, Electrical Resistance Measuring (ERM) with DELMHORST BD-2100 pin moisture meter (Protimeter) and MASTERGRIP Digital Thermometer with Laser for superficial temperature. These techniques can be applied "in situ", without destroying the heritage and do not require to take big samples. Also, are the most appropriate tool for the evaluation the structure, materials and decorative elements of Cultural heritage.

The preservation of cultural heritage often involves the design of systems with different purposes, as for example the devices for extraction of data from inaccessible locations and/or demonstrative models. For the latter, when the starting information about the model to be designed is incomplete, the task is not trivial, and different interpretations of the system can lead to different design outcomes. Moreover, other requirements concerning size, materials and interactivity, make this a real engineering design task, where actors with conflicting needs can be involved. Accordingly, to ensure a comprehensive fulfilment of the task, it is possible to follow engineering systematic design approaches that, even if originally developed for the development of industrial systems, can be conveniently used for different fields of application. More specifically, these design methods ensure the design of cost-effective solutions by reducing the useless and costly design iterations that often characterize non-structured procedures. In particular, the present paper shows the application of systematic methods for the interpretation, the design and the development of realistic physical models from some of the Leonardo da Vinci's machines, for the Museo Leonardiano of Vinci (Italy). The followed approach allowed to efficiently gather the starting list of design requirements, and to engage a successful interaction among the designers, the historians, the museum staff and the architect involved in the showroom design. The key points of the systematic design methodology are presented in this paper, together with some applicative examples from the Da Vinci's models. Other possible application of systematic design approaches are also presented, with the aim of showing some representative examples were the Engineering design and problem-solving methods can support the preservation of cultural heritage.

Freezing of the paper material is a way to control the growth of microorganisms and the possibility of "acute" biodeterioration and illness, after accidental events, e.g. flooding. But as the paper-born microorganisms can survive after lyophilisation, they must be controlled also after the drying process. The decision-making about the adoption of prevention and protection measures for the exposed operators' safety, among which the possibility to control the biodeteriogenic and toxigenic microflora growth by the application of Thymus vulgaris oil, was supported not only by the experimental results but also through a dedicated risk assessment procedure.

In order to prevent seismic damage on building heritage built before Seismic Standards, constructions require to be assess to verify the structural response in the case of multi-level intensity seismic actions. This problem especially concerns those buildings with a social function as schools, hospitals, etc., or with historical and architectural value as that designed by important builders of the past.

This is the case of the bar-restaurant building of "Bellariva" Sport Centre, designed and built in Florence by the World-famous Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi in the Sixty years. Its structure is characterized by reinforced concrete frames and hosts the locker rooms of the swimming pool and a bar on the first floor, a restaurant on the second, where a long crack was observed. The presence of a large balcony with heavy perimeter planters near the cracked zone motivated the execution of on-site tests finalized to determine the steel bars connecting the restaurant floor to the balcony. A Ground Penetrating Radar survey was performed in order to determine the internal structure of the floor, dimensions and disposition of steel bars, and to gather information about the connections between perimeter beams and balcony at the level of the restaurant. The experimental campaign allowed to refine a computational Finite Element Model that was utilized for the performance analysis of the structure in the current state. The paper presents the main results of a preliminary seismic analysis carried out on the structure, on the basis of which some retrofit intervention are suggested.

The archaeological site of Alba Fucens (L'Aquila, Italy) (303 BC) is the largest archaeological area of the whole Apennines. Extension, location and environmental context of the site require new methods for risk mitigation and conservation. In this paper, a multiscale geomatic approach, based on remote sensing and UAV photogrammetry, is reported. The main purpose is the extraction of architectonic and weathering information, useful for a better fruition and conservation. For a multiscale approach, very high resolution satellite images (WorldView2) and UAV Photogrammetry technique have been used. The satellite image processing, performed by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), High-pass filter, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and classification, allowed to detect buried or emerging structures and to estimate fire and erosion risks.

On the other hand, UAV photogrammetry technique allowed to evaluate detailed architectural information of the buried (ima, media and summa caveae) and excavated amphitheatre structures (arena, podium and steps). Furthermore it was also possible to systematically acquire complete and reproducible data on stone materials (limestones) and their weathering (loss of stone material, natural or anthropogenic break out, deposits, efflorescences, dark or light crusts, biological colonization, granular and crumbly disintegration, flaking and fissures).

With a multiscale and metric approach, the geomatic techniques allow to deeply investigate the monument-mapping and to create a detailed 3D models. In this way, the stone decay, the risks and their mechanisms can be evaluated, in order to plan and perform future actions and interventions for their mitigation.

In the region of the cultural patrimony, operators use high-resolution orthophotos of paintings for the restoration, monitoring and electronic recording and exhibition purposes. Unfortunately, artworks that are to be restored and/or shown in digital museums are painted on canvas that are far from perfectly planar. Professional documents surrounding an artwork to be preserved in digital collections or museums can therefore be enhanced with information relating to the paintings' 3D structure. This paper proposes both the design of a portable low-cost device that enables the acquisition of 3D geometry of painting and the procedure for triangulation of 3D data. This process uses a set of fiducial markers to set and continuously control the mutual orientation of the laser source and the camera and works accordingly to the principle of laser-camera triangulation.

In recent years, we have assisted to an impressive advance of computer vision algorithms, based on image processing and artificial intelligence. Among the many applications of computer vision, in this paper we investigate on the potential impact for enhancing the cultural and physical accessibility of cultural heritage sites. By using a common smartphone as a mediation instrument with the environment, we demonstrate how convolutional networks can be trained for recognizing monuments in the surroundings of the users, thus enabling the possibility of accessing contents associated to the monument itself, or new forms of fruition for visually impaired people. Moreover, computer vision can also support autonomous mobility of people with visual disabilities, for identifying pre-defined paths in the cultural heritage sites, and reducing the distance between digital and real world.

Since their excavation, a number of the sites listed as part of "The Megalithic Temples of Malta" inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list have been afflicted by material and structural problems, including collapses. Therefore, three of these sites, the Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien Temples, were protected by open-sided shelters, to address some of the principal causes of deterioration (e.g. direct rainfall, surface weathering, thermal stress). Environmental monitoring, condition assessments and biological surveys of the three sites took place before and after sheltering and are still in progress. To understand how the shelters are affecting these structures, a research programme has started aimed at analysing, through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), the environmental data collected over a period of more than ten years. The aim of using CFD on the Temples is to provide detailed information on how different environmental conditions can affect the sites. For the CFD, macro and meso scale approaches will be used. The macroscale model represents the regional environment, including the all-terrain features around the Temples. Mesoscale modelling represents the Temple structures in a more detailed way. The final goal is to find confident correlations between CFD, and representative areas selected within the Temples showing particular deterioration patterns. All this information will be integrated with the results of in situ analyses to identify the causes of material deterioration and possibly mitigate against them.

Communication is a key arena for shared-reality application: our mixed reality application is developed on Microsoft Hololens and it has been designed to provide new engaging ways to discover the city using augmented reality. Most augmented reality tourism applications isolate the user, therefore, this application has been made multiplayer and collaborative to encourage shared experiences and socialization. In this project two scenarios are described: In the first scenario there is a real guide that exposes to the group, each equipped with Head Mounted Display, the peculiarities of the monument visited. Each user share the 3D models manipulated by the guide that can be in the same room or it can be a remote guide leveraging on the 5G network low latency. Moreover, the guide could highlight and label to convey relevant information about the objects. While in the second scenario there is no real guide, so the application automatically recognizes the framed monument thanks to a visual search engine running on a 5G-ready infrastructure and shows shared information to the whole group of tourists. Moreover, it uses the huge amount of multimedia data stored in the archives of the Italian Public Broadcaster RAI. Thanks to the fact that the new HMDs are able to track the position and orientation of the user, we have created a menu capable of following the user while exploring the city. Moreover, the shared-interaction with virtual objects is performed by hands or vocal commands. Both scenarios allow users to visit a city in a new and intelligent way, promoting participation and collaboration with others and with the guide, unlike previous approaches that involve only one tourist using the information provided by the app.

Stone monuments are the most visible and essential structures of our cultural heritage; however, many of the historical structures around the world are now suffering from stone deterioration. Diyarbakır City Walls, which were acknowledged the status of World Heritage Site by UNESCO, are among the most extensive surviving structures from ancient times. The City Walls have also some deterioration related problems. Basalts having such different textural properties as massive and vesicular were employed as the principal material in the construction of the Diyarbakır City Walls. Weathering is strongly related to the climatic and environmental conditions of the site. In order to evaluate the physical deterioration, environmental conditions were artificially simulated in accelerated weathering tests such as wetting-drying, freezing-thawing, and salt crystallization. For this purpose, 180 massive and vesicular basalt samples were prepared. The effects of these tests were evaluated by visual examination, weight loss, effective porosity, dry and saturated unit weights, water absorptions under atmospheric and vacuum pressure, sonic velocity and uniaxial compressive strength. It is found that the salt crystallization is the most effective accelerated weathering test deteriorating the basalt samples most aggressively.

Zerzevan is a recently discovered castle, situated on a rocky hill in the province of Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey. Like many other Medieval defensive artifacts, Zerzevan Castle has also erected to protect the site against the incursions of enemies and to dominate the land. Zerzevan Castle, as a former military base of the Roman Empire, consists of such remains as churches, tombs observation towers, cisterns, arsenal, canals and city walls. The archaeological excavations conducted in the site revealed the existence of various underground structures, among them a temple of Mithraism, a mystery religion. The temple is considered as the first and unique Mithraeum located on the eastern border of the Roman Empire. The castle has been constructed by employing natural stones. Similar to that of the stone artifacts around the world, the Zerzevan Castle has also suffered from stone deterioration and stability problems. The present study aims to characterize stone used in the Zerzevan Castle as a building material. The study also aims to characterize the provenance of the stone material utilized in the monuments of that archaeological site. For this purpose, samples were collected from the building façade and stone quarry located on the site. The samples then used to determine their petrographic, chemical and some of the physico-mechanical properties. The preliminary results demonstrate that the stone employed in the construction of the Castle is calcitic dolomite. Moreover, the great similarities in chemical compositions of the samples collected from the building and the quarry indicate that the stone material employed in the construction was most probably extracted from the nearby quarries.

In this study, a systematic comparison is presented between ammonium phosphate and commercial nanolimes for the conservation of lime-based renders. Such comparison is very significant, considering that nanolimes are the most widely used inorganic consolidant commonly applied onto plasters, renders and frescoes. Specimens made of slaked lime and siliceous sand were prepared, by applying the fresh mortar onto a solid brick substrate. After curing for 4 months, samples were consolidated by (i) an aqueous solution of diammonium hydrogen phosphate and (ii) commercial nanolimes. The effects of the treatments were evaluated in terms of composition and morphology of the new phases, effectiveness (ultrasounds and scotch tape test) and compatibility (color change and water absorption). The results of the study confirm the high potential of the phosphate treatment, able to provide higher mechanical consolidation in a shorter time (24 hours, instead of at least 4 weeks for nanolimes), while being equally compatible from the aesthetical and physical point of view.

The purpose of this study is to understand how augmented reality is improving the user experience of cultural heritage and museums by making it more engaging and allowing the user to better remember the information relayed. Specifically, this study aims to better understand the use of augmented reality, and how institutions are making use of it by interviewing people involved in two apps that operate outside the museum space. This study can conclude that augmented reality has improved the information delivered and some aspects of the user experience. However, it is difficult to argue that augmented reality is completely improving the user experience of cultural heritage and museums.

On the celebrations for the 500th year since Leonardo da Vinci's death, the city of Fano (I) organized an exhibition on the works of Leonardo to put in evidence the influence of the previous studies of Vitruvius, who left in Fano remarkable signs of his talent. Among the original drawings that were shown, some sheets showed the design of three machines originally described by Vitruvius and then re-interpreted by Leonardo: the water clockwork, the ballista and the odometer. The Authors realized a digital reconstruction of such works, with the aim to let the visitors of the exhibition understand the operation of the machines but also to study the differences in the concepts, to explore their feasibility and to assess their possible performance.

Intuitive and sensitive interaction between robots and humans in the near future will be an integral part of our everyday life environment, to shape new ways of use and make art accessible to a wider audience. Users interact with robotic systems creating new forms of dialogue based on artificial emotions that provide constant feedback to the user through significant gestures and movements. Constantly potential of robotic technologies and additive manufacturing techniques are changing the fruition of cultural heritage through the use of innovative systems that actively involve the viewer in the educational and cognitive experience with strong sensory perceptions, in sensitive environments and interactive spaces. Through additive manufacturing, process and project procedures and paradigms change completely, proposing new design methods which differ from conventional ones. Additive technologies offer new design flexibility compared to traditional production processes, higher production speed, versatility, high precision to ensure adaptive design in functionality and features and cost optimization. The paper addresses, through illustrative case studies, new scenarios of robotic design and additive production techniques at the service of cultural heritage, identifying strengths and weaknesses to outline new design opportunities.

In this work we present an automatic emotion recognition system for the re-use of multimedia content and storytelling for cultural heritage. A huge amount of heterogeneous multimedia data on cultural heritage is available in online and offline databases that can be used and adapted to produce new content. In the real world, human video editors may want to select the video sequences composing the final video with the intention to induce an emotional reaction in the viewer (e.g. happiness, excitement, sadness). Usually they try to achieve this result following their personal judgement. However, this task of video selection could benefit a lot from the exploitation of an automatic sentiment classification system. Our system can help the editor in choosing the video sequences that best fit the desired emotion to be induced. First-of-all the system splits the video in scenes. Then it classifies them using a multimodal classifier which combines temporal features extracted form LSTM, sentiment-related features obtained through a DNN, audio features and motion-related features. The system learns which features are more important and exploits them to classify the scenes in terms of valence and arousal which are well known to correlate with induced emotions. Finally it provides an online video composer which allows the editor to search, filter and compose the scenes in a new video using sentiment information. To train the classifier we also collected and annotated a small dataset of both users recorded videos and professional ones downloaded from the web.

Whenever an operator approaches the three-dimensional modeling of an architectural object, he always must compose together a series of simple elements. This logic of additive and hierarchical composition finds an excellent application in BIM processes for built heritage, where the operator is called upon not only to compose the architectural elements together but also to break down the architecture by investigating its parts and mutual links. The main difference between the BIM model for new buildings and the existing one lies above all in the concept of the ideal model. In fact, while for the new building the model proceeds from a project and gradually develops with it, in the historical building the only starting point is the current state of the building, told through the surveys and documentation. It is necessary to model an as is, that starts from historical and bibliographic research in the first place, and which is supported by the survey and diagnostic analyses that account for the structure beyond the skin of the building, investigated by the numerical models. Once the model has been created, it can always be implemented with new information coming from further analysis and represent not only the current state of conservation of the artefact but also consider the different evolutions over time. In this context, the proposed research describes the BIM modeling process applied to the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, trying to clarify the terminologies used in this application and defining an application methodology by stages, based on the decomposition and reconstruction of historical architecture.

In this paper the experience is reported of the use of 3D printing for the dissemination of a cultural content. When Filippo Brunelleschi vaulted the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence without using any scaffolding, demonstrated the ability to control the constructive process in its structural essence. The comprehension of the static principles that stand at the base of the equilibrium of a circular dome are necessary to understand the work of the architect and the reason of the herringbone brickwork adopted. These principles can be easily explained, also to people who do not have any technical education, by means of a three dimensional model. A wood model realized by hand in the '80 was reproduced in a smaller scale with 3D printing. The geometry of the model was easily reproduced with a parametric modelling software and was then elaborated to produce the geometric models for sintering polyamide voussoirs. A comparison is attempted between the cost of the two physical models in term of work time and print time, and a balance is made to highlight the value added to the production of such didactical models by the 3D printing process.

Sustainable lighting designs, with a view to achieve an adaptive reuse, refurbishment and conservative rehabilitation of cultural heritage, focusing on lighting quality, mainly obtained from the optimal use of natural light combined with artificial one, is the main aim of our present research. A historical Florentine monastery, which was turned into a university library, i.e. Santa Marta University Library in Florence, was used as a pilot project. Energy saving, natural light control combined with artificial light regulation, sustainable and quality lighting by means of optic fiber textile integration, acted as fundamentals of the proposed sustainable adaptive, non-invasive, reversible and easily removable lighting design. The integrated use of natural light with LED systems and optic fibers by means of a command structure made with supervision and home automation systems based on Konnex, the first open building automation standard, allows lighting solutions for quality and environmental and energy sustainability in cultural heritage. Results showed that the proposed methodological approach allows lighting proposals with the aim of building adaptive reuse, based on architectural structure optimal use, historical–philological reading of the indoor environment, cultural heritage (CH) preventive protection and conservation, but also people and works of art "health and well-being".

This research provides an integrated methodological approach based on the combined use of spatial syntax modelling and eyetracker analysis techniques for lighting sustainability aimed to adaptive reuse of all the spaces with high historical, architectural, philological value of Cultural Heritage (CH). MosLESS (Modelling Sustainable Lighting with Eyetracker and Spatial Syntax techniques) is the proposed method, that can suggest fundamental guidelines for dynamic and static lighting in the museographic and museological areas, but also for reuse, conservation and enhancement of historical and CH buildings integrated with efficient energy management and conservation and protection needs. The National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa (Italy) was the pilot project. Particular environments were chosen for the experimental measurement campaigns carried out to assess dynamic and static visual fields, vision and perception. Methodological approach and results can be useful tools for exhibition planning with important energy, social and cultural effects. A further objective of the research will be to facilitate cultural exchanges, communication and new procedures for the digital management of the transmission or modification of museographic and exhibition projects, up to relations with public clients, as well as integrated management of information and decision-making processes.

Buildings components and assemblies are prone to decay over time due to the inherent characteristics of the materials, environmental conditions and operational use of them. For this reason, it is very important to know the right time and type of maintenance and adaptation interventions that need to be applied to the specific compounds. The answer to the above issue can be given through the service life prediction (SLP) of the components by using standardized calculation methods.

In historic buildings, the process of SLP takes significant importance because these buildings hold non-renewable cultural heritage value and therefore, the interventions should be performed in a way that preserves the original material and value while enhancing the service life. Nowadays, for such buildings that are predicted to live for centuries, the SLP needs to be corrected by considering the effects of climate change in the construction materials.

The paper presents an overview of the application of the well-known factor method in the estimation of the serviceability of the building components, with a special focus on historic buildings impacted by climate change. The technical compatibility, economic viability, use of the building and the indoor/outdoor environments are considered during the assessment of the service life which is strictly linked with the level of decay. It gives a short explanation of the factors that constitute the method by including the effects of climate change and an example of application to a specific case study in Norway.

Roman best practices concerning construction technology were well consolidated and implemented in ancient times. These are traditionally belonging to Vitruvius, who coded the classic rules on architecture. Amongst these, the destination of use of the different rooms is paramount, especially in respect to the orientation of the building. Dynamic energy simulation software is a tool of proven effectiveness and of widespread diffusion in the field of building engineering. It is primarily used to evaluate and foreseen the effects that building stratigraphy, thermal loads and HVAC systems have on the indoor thermo-hygrometric conditions. In this study, such tool has been used to investigate ancient buildings, basing the analysis on reliable hypothesis about the original construction, partially assumed if the upper structures were missing, on the actual stratigraphy obtained from archaeological remains, and on the supposed ancient climate condition estimated from literature on ancient climate and archaeological evidences. The analyzed case study is a Roman domus that dates back to 3^rd century AD, located in Piazza Nogara (Verona, Italy). The proposed method allows evaluating the indoor comfort conditions that occurred when the building was inhabited. Furthermore, simulating different building orientations, it is possible to verify if the actual destination of use of the rooms is the very best from an indoor microclimate standpoint.

Soundscape analysis started to be a research field in the late sixties and received significant attention by researchers in the last twenty years. Experts in community noise and environmental acoustics and, more recently, policy makers and practitioners show interest for soundscapes, due to its multidisciplinary approach focusing on how people actually experience their acoustic environments in different indoor and outdoor environments. In 2014 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) officially defined Soundscape as "acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by people, in context". The peculiarity of the Soundscape approach is that it firstly relies upon human perception and then turns to physical assessment. The study of the soundscape related to cultural heritage is a subject not yet very widespread and deeply investigated by researchers and designers. In this paper, after an introduction about the general soundscape concept and approach, its connection with quiet areas is addressed. Moreover, existing methodologies to deal with the soundscape of cultural heritage are reported, together with the recent trend of archiving sounds considered to be disappeared or lost in memory, to enhance them as the cultural heritage of our society.

Historical cartography, as a fundamental part of Cultural Heritage, constitutes a precious asset, not only to be safeguarded, but also to be used to study the evolution of the territory over time. In this perspective, regeneration of ancient cartography in digital represents an interesting way to allow new chances of using its historic and geographic information, by modalities that cannot apply to analogue supports. In particular, the creation of HGIS (Historical Geographic Information System) is a way to integrate historical cartography with historical data of various kinds and compare them with the current reality, thus constituting an aid instrument for the study of the historical landscape. The present study investigates the possibility of studying the city of Bologna, in particular its ancient waterways, using some 18^th and 19^th century maps – georeferenced on the current cartography – together with other archive data (drawings and news taken from an ancient gazette). All these data have been merged in one GIS, this way offering a new look at the ancient city of waters, characterized by a grandiose hydraulic system, with the Savena and the Reno artificial channels and the Aposa natural channel, several silk mills, sewer systems, water wheels and a port.

Saigon was founded by the army commander Nguyen Huu Canh in the seventeenth century. It became the capital of the French colony of Cochin-China in 1883, part of French Indochinese Union which lasted until 1945, and the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) until 1975. It has diverse cultural characteristics and a unique urban form. It was described as 'the pearl of the Far East' during the 19th and 20th centuries. After the unification of North and South Vietnam in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The economic reform process, Doi Moi, which started in the late 1986s, transformed Vietnam from a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy, and its cities, HCMC included, underwent significant new development. This paper aims to re-understand the nature of old Saigon's establishment and identity to authentically consolidate new findings of the spatial development axis; re-assess the cultural significance of remaining places, which are needed to support the coming Master plan period 2040-2060 of HCMC towards sustainable conservation in a globalization context.

The paper presents an innovative way of conceiving the museum exhibit particularly useful in those territorial contexts in which it is possible to simultaneously show the place of discovery of the exhibit n (contextualizing it through the virtual reproduction of the historical scenario) and the find itself adding to this the possibility of narrating one's own history and characteristics. The entire meta-project is designed for the Pietraroja site in the province of Benevento which would acquire considerable cultural interest thanks to the potential of augmented and mixed reality. The main idea is to use this new technology to involve the user (observer) by rebuilding the environment and the peculiarities of the finds. The perception of the augmented elements will be possible by design a specific application for smartphone that everyone gets in its pocket.

Demo-ethno-anthropological assets belonging to the cultural heritage are not "autonomous" but represent the nodes of a complex system of relations. Their narration – for the purposes of knowledge and cultural diffusion – cannot transcend this relational dimension that recognises an enormous potential for development in the application of digital culture and in the prudent use of augmented reality. In the perspective of a design museum, it is therefore necessary to accompany each artefact / asset with a digital matrix that provides accurate information in relation to its critical interpretation. The exposure of an augmented object, in fact, allows to read better its use and social value along specific interpretative lines. This essay summarizes the study of a new type of archive – the animated archive of cultural materials – intended as a system of standard cataloguing of objects for a museum on design. Moreover, it is based on the critical comparison between the contribution of ludic humanism and the augmented narrative. This comparison is necessary because the rhetorical and design systems of the playful narrative offers interesting information for the realization of virtual – and non – exhibits, since the type of involvement and the environment required by the spectator is very similar; but above all because games are an important experimentation of interactive models of learning and cultural production.

CETRA - Cultural Equipment with Transmedial Recommendation Analytics - is a comprehensive combination of IoT (Internet of Things), machine learning, recommendation, content adaptivity and Big Data Analytics applications, in line with a new concept of transmediality, aiming to close the gap between tourist-cultural promotion requirements and the need to deliver personalized, dynamic and accessible heritage content to users. The paper will describe the research results related to new technological solutions addressing the heritage experience in an era of: massive content production and massive participation by visitors who demand personalized involvement.

This article discusses the importance of technology in the enhancement of underwater heritage, using the Wreck of the Church in the coastal area of Marzamemi (Italy) as a case study. This heritage site is under study in the framework of the European research and knowledge transfer project, WARMEST. There is an increasing variety of digital tools that promise to improve people's experience with heritage sites, to enhance the value of heritage and contribute to the socio-economic development of the territories. A strategy is proposed for Marzamemi underwater heritage site, where communication efforts give potential visitors a sense of the destination that motivates them to choose it and encourage them to talk widely about their experience. To this end, digital tools are a great asset in establishing such a communication strategy to increase information about this heritage on the various websites and social networks related to Marzameni, so that knowledge of Marzameni's underwater heritage would undoubtedly be enhanced.

When wooden supports of panel paintings have been severely altered or damaged and the original crossbeams are missing, new crossbeams or other types of auxiliary supports can be connected to the panel's back-face in order to achieve desired effects including panel strengthening and control of deformations. In order to make such connection, the Restorers of Opificio delle Pietre Dure use small wooden blocks, each glued on the back face of the panel, and holding freely the head of a screw connected (often by means of springs) to the auxiliary support; the English term 'buttons' has been proposed for such blocks. This research examines in depth how the shape (conical or cylindrical) and dimensions (diameter in the 20-30 mm range, and thickness in the 3-6 mm range) of the buttons, all made from oak wood, influence their stiffness and load-carrying capacity. Each button was glued onto a dummy beech board by means of epoxy structural resin; a 3 mm diameter steel screw was inserted in each button's hole prior to gluing, so that its head remained 'trapped' between the button's cavity and the board. A short-term mechanical test was performed with a universal testing machine by axially pulling out the screw from the button. Load and displacement were recorded, and the load–displacement curves were analysed. The results showed that within the tested range: a) the ultimate load-carrying capacity of the buttons is only influenced by the residual thickness above the screw head, b) nor the shape nor the external diameter of the buttons have any influence on their mechanical properties, c) the stiffness (slope of the straight part of the load-displacement curve) of the connection depends only on the embedding of the screw head into the wood (i.e. mainly on the wood density).

Archaeological Heritage, naturally endangered by environmental processes and anthropogenic pressures, is today increasingly at risk, because of intense human activities and climate change, and their impact on atmosphere and soil. European research is increasingly dedicated to the development of good practices for monitoring archaeological sites and their preservation. One of the running projects about these topics is RESEARCH (Remote Sensing techniques for Archaeology; H2020-MSCA-RISE, grant agreement: 823987), started in 2018 and ending in 2022. RESEARCH aims at testing risk assessment methodology using an integrated system of documentation and research in the fields of archaeology and environmental studies. It will introduce a strategy and select the most efficient tools for the harmonization of different data, criteria, and indicators in order to produce an effective risk assessment. These will be used to assess and monitor the impact of soil erosion, land movement, and land-use change on tangible archaeological heritage assets. As a final product, the Project addresses the development of a multi-task thematic platform, combining advanced remote sensing technologies with GIS application. The demonstration and validation of the Platform will be conducted on six case studies located in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Poland, and variously affected by the threats considered by the Project. In the frame of RISE (Research and Innovation Staff Exchange), RESEARCH will coordinate the existing expertise and research efforts of seven beneficiaries into a synergetic plan of collaborations and exchanges of personnel (Ph.D. students and research staff), to offer a comprehensive transfer of knowledge and training environment for the researchers in the specific area. This paper aims at illustrating the results of the activities conducted during the first year of the Project, which consisted in developing an effective risk assessment methodology for soil-related threats affecting archaeological heritage, and defining the scientific requirements and the user requirements of the Platform. The activities have been conducted in synergy with all the Partners and were supported by the possibility of staff exchange allowed by the funding frame MSCA-RISE.

An integrative and innovative communication model to enhance the knowledge, comprehension and delectation of cultural and natural heritage through technology-based contemporary art is described. By relating these two traditionally dissociated fields (heritage and contemporary art), a particular form of dialogue between them occurs and it is transferred to society within an emotional and intellectual discourse away from those merely informative. The heritage sites Alhambra Lions Court in Granada (Spain), Santa Croce's second cloister in Florence (Italy) and Marzamemi underwater Wreck of Church (Italy) are under study in the framework of the European research and knowledge transfer project, WARMEST3. A strategy of communication based on pieces and actions of contemporary art will be proposed to set up a new frame in the diffusion of the cultural and natural legacy. That will encourage its preservation and, at the same time, will set up a new research line around site specific art work related to heritage sites communication.

The cultural heritage and the ways in which it is today studied and analysed as well as disseminated and enhanced for the purposes of conservation, requires high attention in the choice of 3D survey and modelling methods. This manuscript investigates the possible integrations and fusion of methods and data, among the vast availability of image and range based systems, especially in the sphere of low cost techniques, which in the context of heritage documentation makes the whole and complex process of conservation more sustainable. The investigation is carried out on a historical fountain that includes a quantity of cultural values and the need to document its context: its location in the historical Valentino of Turin park, its architectural values and the geometry of the complex typically related to the tastes of the late XIX century that consist in the extreme refinement of the statuary complexes and the underground portion with the technological equipment for the activation of the water games. Basically, it will be possible to appreciate solved issues and permanent criticalities derived from the integration of close range and UAV photogrammetry techniques in addition to the LiDAR survey, both classic from a fixed position, and in the portable scanner mode, based on SLAM technology.

This study is prompted by the activity carried out within a EU funded project (WARMEST)[1] whose goal is to analyze monuments' degradation due to factors such as climate change and growing number of tourists, create a model to describe and anticipate the phenomena, and put in place a user-friendly Decision Support System that will help in setting preventive maintenance plans. As part of the project, we had the chance to study in depth the degradation at the Patio de Los Leones, the core of the world-famous site of the Alhambra and Generalife, which attracts to Granada in Spain where they are located over 2 million tourists per year. The paper aims to define a new methodology to assess the level of urgency to restore the 124 columns of the Patio de Los Leones (Alhambra). It is not easy to identify all the factors affecting the columns' deterioration and to establish which should be restored first. Our approach is to collect all the data regarding the decay factor and use multi criteria decision aid methods such us the Analytic Hierarchy Process in order to create a hierarchy among all columns according to their decay. We also will create an HBIM model of the Patio del Los Leones in order to optimize the management and maintenance of the columns. HBIM model can also optimize the data management and enable to compare results (in this case data about columns decay) over time.

A collaboration aiming to improve knowledge and procedures for conservation of Panel Paintings has been in force since several years between OPD (Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence) and the Research Group on Wood Technology of DAGRI (University of Florence). In such framework a research is here presented, which for the first time has led to dimensioning rationally (i.e. by means of objective criteria based on Conservation, on Engineering and on Wood Science principles) the stiffness of the crossbeams of an original Panel Painting. Crossbeams typically have a double function: a) to control the deformation of the panel painting when it undergoes climate changes and b) to stiffen the panel painting for handling purposes. If too stiff or too yielding, crossbeams might damage the wooden support or the paint layers; until today the choice of their stiffness was entrusted to the expert but subjective judgment of the Restorers alone, who therefore have been calling for a confrontation with Wood and Engineering Scientists in order to develop more objective criteria. To satisfy this request the research here mentioned has been carried out, in close collaboration between the Restorers of OPD and the Wood Scientists of DAGRI, to develop a specific protocol allowing for the rational dimensioning of the stiffness of crossbeams. This protocol is based on an engineering modular approach, and for the first time it has been applied on an original artwork, the Adorazione del bambino e committente attributed to Cesare da Sesto (1514-1520). One of the modules of such protocol is to assess the stiffness of both the crossbeams and the wooden support and, in such framework, this paper presents the non-invasive mechanical tests that were designed and implemented to check in-situ various mechanical parameters (including the axial holding capacity) of the original nail connections between the crossbeams and the wooden support. Such knowledge might in general be helpful especially during the diagnostic phase, to understand the internal forces still acting into the wood structure, and possibly their influences on the degradation of the paint layers in relation to the behaviour of the wooden support.

The 36 Old Street Quarter is a downtown area of Hanoi City, which has over 1000 years old and contains such traces of history and architecture. The grid structure gives it a significant character that is a part of the local heritage facing phenomenon of replacing settings of ancient spaces, stoning the streets and concretizing old buildings due to anti-conservative interplay from its users. Therefore, this paper examines the user's behaviour in optimizing different settings of Hanoi Old Quarter (HOQ) towards conservation efforts. Theoretically, the research was conducted by making use of 'affordances' terminology of Gibson (1986/1979) to understand interactions between the spatial settings and its user. Methodologically, the purposeful method of local people and layout-based sketch of the blocks, and analysed images of outdoor and shared places have been employed for three survey sites respectively. The results of community-based behaviours, its patterns and 'verb-ability' are fundamental factor to develop ground-up programs on urban and architectural conservation in the Vietnam's contextualisation.

This paper reviews and re-assesses the contemporary state of research on Cham cultural heritage sites, which are associated with the pre-modern Champa civilization in Vietnam. For this purpose, architectural heritage, sculptures, and museums related to the potential of common interests are taken into consideration across the intersection of the local Cham community, the Vietnamese government, and international scholars. There are some conflicts between these interested parties, which have resulted from unequal dynamics, which occasionally result in lasting tensions and errors in judgement. Our research findings result in an actionable plan with systematic solutions, which we outline in this paper. We argue the proposed plan will improve the management, conservation, and promote Cham cultural heritage sites more sustainably.

Automatic painting classification by author, artistic genre and/or other attributes has generated considerable research interest in recent years. Being one of the visual features that mark the difference between artists and artistic genres, colour plays a fundamental role in this process. Colour is the result of the interaction among the intrinsic properties of the material, the illumination conditions and the response of the imaging device. Consequently, the same painting/artwork will look significantly different when imaged under varied conditions, which can be a potential source of bias for automated recognition procedures. One can compensate for such variations either via colour calibration or colour pre-processing. In this work we investigate the latter, and, in particular, evaluate the effectiveness of colour constancy and colour augmentation when coupled with hand-crafted and deep learning features for painting classification by artistic genre. In our experiments neither approach showed a clear advantage compared with no pre-processing at all. Colour constancy brought some improvement in certain cases, whereas colour augmentation virtually provided no benefit despite its adding a significant computational overload to the procedure.

This paper deals with the application of digital technologies to the preservation and exploitation of the heterogeneous documents of the Herbarium Universitatis Mediolanensis of the University of Milan. The collection, dating back to the 19^th and 20^th Century, is mainly constituted by exsiccata, i.e. specimens (whole plants or plant parts) in dried form mounted on paper sheets; the archive also includes large botanical lithographs originally used in schools as educational tools. The long-term goal of the project is to complete the digitization campaign and make all these documents publicly available via a Web portal; currently, all metadata (23000 files approx.) and about 6000 digital objects are online. In this work, the whole process will be discussed, from digitization to the implementation of the Web portal based on a multimedia relational database.

Nowadays, society passes through a moment of transition, in which technological progress has offered the possibility, as well as the challenge, of gathering and transmitting an infinity of information in such short time. In this context, the museum transforms, it becomes a sensitive organism that modifies the visitor-artwork relationship, introducing new models of interaction and fruition. Design in line with digital technologies play a determinative role in this transformation, generating new languages and experimentations that multiply the levels of artwork narration, introducing new temporal dimensions and exhibition paradigms. Despite the considerable progress accomplished in recent years both by research and industry in the fields of acquisition techniques, digitalization, computer graphics, visualization, most of the applications for the communication of cultural heritage on site and on line still have many limitations concerning their ability of engaging the users. They often lack narrative metaphors, sensorial and emotional involvement, while interaction interfaces may appear hostile for a considerable part of the visitors. Starting from the most appropriate learning style to the characteristics regarding the user's identity, he has the necessity to enter a space, be it real or virtual, able to stimulate him towards future insights and knowledge acquisition. Storytelling and perception come into play in order to build experience, which needs to engage the visitor emotionally, but it must also be capable of not subtracting him to the real visit. It has to offer valid hints, but it must not become a substitute of reality, while technologies must not transform into barriers, but into an opening towards a future accessible to all. With the forthcoming objective of understanding how to overcome limitations and build enhanced fruition and adaptive, personalised interaction models where the visitor stays at the centre of the design scene, this paper analyses the current transformations, providing a general view of national and international experiences that use the technological potential in an innovative way, defining best practices in the field. The connections between user and technology related to space and time will be highlighted, as well as the storytelling methods and the interactive, engaging and sensorial visitor - museum experiences.

Lossy video stream compression is performed to reduce the bandwidth and storage requirements. Moreover also image compression is a need that arises in many circumstances.It is often the case that older archive are stored at low resolution and with a compression rate suitable for the technology available at the time the video was created. Unfortunately, lossy compression algorithms cause artifact. Such artifacts, usually damage higher frequency details also adding noise or novel image patterns. There are several issues with this phenomenon. Low-quality images can be less pleasant to persons. Object detectors algorithms may have their performance reduced. As a result, given a perturbed version of it, we aim at removing such artifacts to recover the original image. To obtain that, one should reverse the compression process through a complicated non-linear image transformation. We propose a deep neural network able to improve image quality. We show that this model can be optimized either traditionally, directly optimizing an image similarity loss (SSIM), or using a generative adversarial approach (GAN). Our restored images have more photorealistic details with respect to traditional image enhancement networks. Our training procedure based on sub-patches is novel. Moreover, we propose novel testing protocol to evaluate restored images quantitatively. Differently from previously proposed approaches we are able to remove artifacts generated at any quality by inferring the image quality directly from data. Human evaluation and quantitative experiments in object detection show that our GAN generates images with finer consistent details and these details make a difference both for machines and humans.

This paper explores the relationship between digital technologies and preservation of popular music heritage and focuses on the AR exhibition, David Bowie Is. Through the lens of discourse analysis, it discusses the interpretation of the popular music and its various digital narratives, the authenticity of user experiences, and how museum functions can be promoted by virtual exhibitions. It provides multiple narratives to tell Bowie's untold stories and experiments on music, stage, and costumes that questioned gender and social norms. It creates authentic experiences for the audience through offering augmented information on exhibits that arouse the audience's emotions and trigger their memories. The AR exhibition can also help to promote the museum's functions due to access without boundaries, digital preservation and enhancing the museum's educational role. The paper suggests that this AR exhibition offers new ways for museums to preserve popular music and different experiences of listening with potential commercial value.

A primary text for understanding the architecture of Franciscan convents in Portugal is the 17^th century Estatutos da Província de Santa Maria da Arrábida that outlines rules to the construction of convents belonging to the Arrábida province. Beyond articulating the conduct of daily life within the convents, the rules also describe the required spaces of the building accompanied by maximum dimensions to maintain consistent austerity across the order. The research presented in this paper discusses ongoing approaches to visualize these rules from an architectural lens in order to better understand the contents of the document both in-themselves and to how they manifest themselves in specific instances of convents across the province. One approach of the study combines text analysis and visualization through digital modelling and 3D printing. By first visualizing the spaces and relations of the ideal convent as described through a set of volumetric digital models, a comparison was later made between the dimensions and arrangement of these ideals to specific instances found in convents of the same time period, region and Franciscan reform. Another approach of the study uses photographic and photogrammetric surveys of details and spaces found across four convents of the Arrábida province in order to compare and visualize the scale and configuration of common elements – both described by the text and not. Overall, the paper also aims to demonstrate how new tools in digital heritage can assist in the study and dissemination of the otherwise invisible dimensions of heritage buildings.

The Portuguese word for traditional glazed tile is "azulejo" and derives from the Arabic "azuleicha", meaning 'small polished stone'. Deeply embedded in Portugal's history and culture, there are countless valuable examples of traditional glazed tiles all around the country that are a significant part of the Portuguese cultural heritage and must be safeguarded and protected. In recent years there has been an increased demand for individual tiles and panels by tourist, leading to a serious national problem not only with the tiles' theft, but also with the built environment dilapidation. This paper introduces the role that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can play in the preservation and safeguard of traditional Portuguese glazed tile heritage, specifically on the record of these architectural elements. This technology is worldwide used to locate, inventory, manage and support heritage preservation, providing local authorities with a tool to manage tile architectural heritage interventions, enhance tourism purposes and preventing theft and illegal sale. The presented work results from a partnership between the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and Covilhã Municipality (Portugal) for the inventory of the city tile heritage. Record information sheets were developed with relevant information about the location, cultural, historic and photographic tile data. The information collected from 70 tile works was used to develop a GIS tool for glazed tile coated building facades, decorative glazed tile wall panels and toponymical glazed tile plates. The results of the first stage of GIS implementation were validated by both the research team and the municipality, foreseeing its expansion and daily use in the management of traditional Portuguese glazed tile heritage.

This paper focuses on the archaeological and architectural analysis of the Late Roman settlement of Umm al-Dabadib (Kharga Oasis, Egypt). The available information on the archaeological remains of this site includes on-site hand-made sketches, photographs, 3D surveys. The final aim of this specific research is the interpretation and reconstruction of the historical context of this site by combining sources of different nature. This paper presents the methodology employed to elaborate the 3D data in order to achieve a digital restitution of the archaeological map of the entire settlement, which covers an area of about one hectare. The starting point was the elaboration of the close-range photogrammetric survey of the Fortified Settlement that allowed the creation of a 3D point cloud of the whole area, based on the elaboration of over 5,000 photographs, from which a complete and detailed metric model was derived. This 3D model played a key role to extract metric information and to reconstruct the geometrical structure of the settlement, but this result could only be achieved thanks to the successful combination of the digital data with the hand-made sketches and the pictures taken in situ in the recent past. This paper represents an outcome of the project LIFE (Living In a Fringe Environment), funded by the ERC CoGrant 681673.

The paper presents DatabencArt and EDUBBA, two strictly integrated digital infrastructures designed and developed to cope with the increasing demand of a smart use of cutting-edge technologies in the Cultural Heritage (CH) realm. DatabencArt has been primarily designed to facilitate the cataloguing of CH objects while EDUBBA is focused on educational purposes. These platforms are the results of a long-term research effort made in the last five years by DATABENC Consortium (Distretto ad Alta Tecnologia per i Beni Culturali) and treasuring the experiences gained with the exploitation of many research projects in the field of of ICT technologies for Cultural Heritage knowledge, preservation, valorization and sustainable fruition.

Technology and the fruition of cultural heritage are becoming increasingly more entwined, especially with the advent of smart audio guides, virtual and augmented reality, and interactive installations. Machine learning and computer vision are important components of this ongoing integration, enabling new interaction modalities between user and museum. Nonetheless, the most frequent way of interacting with paintings and statues still remains taking pictures. Yet images alone can only convey the aesthetics of the artwork, lacking is information which is often required to fully understand and appreciate it. Usually this additional knowledge comes both from the artwork itself (and therefore the image depicting it) and from an external source of knowledge, such as an information sheet. While the former can be inferred by computer vision algorithms, the latter needs more structured data to pair visual content with relevant information. Regardless of its source, this information still must be be effectively transmitted to the user. A popular emerging trend in computer vision is Visual Question Answering (VQA), in which users can interact with a neural network by posing questions in natural language and receiving answers about the visual content. We believe that this will be the evolution of smart audio guides for museum visits and simple image browsing on personal smartphones. This will turn the classic audio guide into a smart personal instructor with which the visitor can interact by asking for explanations focused on specific interests. The advantages are twofold: on the one hand the cognitive burden of the visitor will decrease, limiting the flow of information to what the user actually wants to hear; and on the other hand it proposes the most natural way of interacting with a guide, favoring engagement.

The ease of piloting drones, the increasingly high performance of sensors, range of action and autonomy of the platform in flight, combined with an apparent simplicity of realization of 3D models through modern photogrammetry (based on algorithms of Structure from Motion and techniques of Computer Vision), have created a real boom for use in archeology. The trust placed in these new technologies has not always allowed a careful analysis of the limits of these tools and methodologies. In fact, these technologies are often used badly or not to their full potential, probably due to the absence of a general manual and because they are technologies in constant development. The aim of this paper is the discuss of potentials and limits of the use of drones in the documentation of archaeological sites, which are high dependent by the territorial archaeological context and several variables that will be argued.

Diagnostics digital images are often used to assess artworks. However, as all digital images they are also concerned by the issue of integrity. Computer vision techniques can be employed to obtain physical evidence of possible tampering. In this paper we explore the possibility to apply state of the art forensic algorithms to typical painting diagnostic images, taking into consideration real case studies. State of the art algorithms have been applied to genuine and modified diagnostic images to detect if, and how, forgeries of such images could be automatically detected and documented. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that such investigation is made. Results of the aforementioned tests prove that automatic assessment of the integrity of diagnostic images is challenging and that there are no reliable solutions currently available.

All Virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality or straight-up video games can now be found in growing numbers within spaces dedicated to culture and the arts. The choice of such tools is trans-forming the traditional museum tour into a multifaceted and interactive experience to the point, in some cases, of flirting with entertainment. From our experience, the role of augmented reality hasn't been to substitute itself to the « real » tour. On the contrary, AR invites the user to immerse themselves in an animated personal experience enriched with supplementary information. Elaborated with goals and features different from those of virtual reality, AR aims at strengthening direct contact with works of art as much as possible, inciting an active « live » use and a presence "on-site" more than "on-line". The diversity of three logistical contexts in which we have worked — a large-scale monument, a historical palace and its heterogenous art collection, and finally an archeological complex encompassing a traditional museum and the remains of a Roman amphitheatre — has brought us to reflect upon the functional aspects that come to determine a personalized digital product, as tailored as possible to specific needs. Each of the three apps has permitted a deepening of each of their features in order to meet specific goals targeted by various museum institutions. In this paper we describe these features in more specific terms.

The aqueducts are the most impressive and original building of the ancient Rome. The aqueducts moved water only by gravity, being constructed with a slight downward slope, within conduits of stone, brick or concrete. All along valleys or plains, the conduit was supported by buildings with arches, or its contents were placed to pressure in lead, ceramic or stone pipes. The aim of this work is to study and determine the slope and so to evaluate the actual flows, considering also that the area is interested by crustal movements. To evaluate it a geomatic survey of a part of the New Aniene and Claudia roman aqueducts was realised. The measured average slopes have values close to the value of 2 %« described in ancient texts that report the details of the realization of the Roman works. From the slopes through a hydraulic model the flow rate has been calculated. The general lowering of the study area was also highlighted through the comparison of reconstructed lines slope and those realized in 1917, approximately equal to 0.45 m.

The paper presents the main outcomes and future development of the INCEPTION project, "Inclusive Cultural Heritage in Europe through 3D semantic modelling", funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Work Programme Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective Societies (Call Reflective-7-2014, Advanced 3D modelling for accessing and understanding European cultural assets) and completed in May 2019. In particular, the key-targeted project achievement will be presented: a specific cloud-based platform conceived to accomplish the main objectives of accessing, understanding and strengthening European Cultural Heritage by means of enriched 3D models. The need for digital data interpretation, in addition to documentation, guided the overall process of the cross-disciplinary work methodology, based on new methods and tools for 3D surveying and H-BIM modelling, new approaches and methodologies for Cultural Heritage 3D data inclusive access and exploitation by means of the Platform.

Today the VR (Virtual Reality) enable us to enter into fantasy or real other worlds to experience a growing emotional and interaction involvement. Frequently, the Virtual Reality is correlated with activities and experiences that are tricky to realize, as, for example, the discovery of the sea depths or the flying on the sky, or the discover of village and landscapes thousands of km away from us. Over the last years, VR technologies have largely applicate for a digital fruition of cultural heritage. Some examples are the observation of monumental build or virtually rebuilt archaeological sites, experiences that provide impressive and innovative virtual activities. In many cases, it is a only alternative option for discovering archeological sites in private properties or dangerous to visit and to see inaccessible cultural heritage in peripheral areas. In this work, one example of application of virtual reality is discussed: The Chiesa della Madonna dei Mali (Ferrandina, near Matera). This is a famous rural chapel localized in a country area of Ferrandina, far from the classic tourist itineraries of the city, and it contains a cycle of frescoes by Pietro Antonio Ferro, one of the most important painters of the seventeenth century in Basilicata.

We describe a project, fully formalized, to create a "Service Center" for ancient books and manuscripts, in the "Biblioteca dei Girolamini" Library of Girolamini in Naples, Italy. This unique library hosts about 180.000 pieces, 500 of which are medieval manuscripts, 120 incunabulum, 5.000 editions of the 16th century – among others, as well as an ancient Musical Archive. The library is located in the heart of Naples, in a magnificent place where a series of initiative are already taking place, as a collaboration between the University of Naples Federico II and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. All these features make Library of Girolamini a rare case study in the field of ancient books. The project aims at a complete digitization of the books; however, the important part of the project is the creation of full sets of metadata with a complete history of the documents and of the studies about the document itself. The first books to be considered will be a set of 512 manuscripts of the XIII century, e.g. a fully illustrated Divina Commedia or Seneca's tragedies with miniature paintings. There will be two main streams of work: a conservation and study of ancient books through the digitization in a proper file format namely the FITS Flexible Image Transport System; b grant the access to this information in the Big Data era using such technologies as Internet of Things and Machine Lerning in order to identify the ancient book and categorize it. This project will also allow to many young students to put in practice the studies within the "Scuola di Alta Formazione in Storia e Filologia del manoscritto e del libro antico", formally started in the year 2018. The access to information will allow, for example, the extraction and classification of figures, and the automatic recognition of the device used pc, tablet, smartphone and its resolution.

The paper presents an on-going Interreg Italy-Croatia project, funded in the period 2019-2021 under the specific objective "Make natural and cultural heritage a leverage for sustainable and more balanced territorial development (3.1)". The project REMEMBER (REstoring the MEmory of Adriatic ports sites. Maritime culture to foster Balanced tERritorial growth) has the overall objective to promote the shift toward sustainable tourism and blue growth in the Programme area through the valorization of the important maritime cultural tangible and intangible heritage of 8 Adriatic Italian and Croatian ports sites. The joint valorization will be carried out by the 10 project partners, with cross-cutting competences and multidisciplinary experience. Mainly REMEMBER project aims at increasing the attractiveness of local economies through the use of ICT for the digitalization of cultural contents and to differentiate the touristic offer reducing the tourism seasonality. At the current stage, the project has set up the methodological and theoretical framework in order to instantiate the Virtual Museums for the 8 ports. This common concept envisaged the development of a cloud based tool as first gate of the Virtual Museum project and provided all Project Partners with a baseline for setting up cultural and technological virtual museums, for the enhancement and promotion of ports cultural elements during the project implementation. The technical work packages, presented in the paper, establish also a common set of information as basis to reach the same digital outputs, compliant with the project goals: these outputs are called Digital Experiences and are connected to state of art technologies, enabling the dissemination of the tangible and intangible heritage related to eight port cities.

In the past, it was difficult to exhaustively document gardens and artificial grottoes with traditional manual survey techniques and maybe also for this reason the restoration Charters used to pass over the need of an accurate survey. Currently, high resolution sampling allows to obtain 3-D data acquisition and realistic and metrically accurate representations. However, the quality of a digital model is not validated by automatic measures or likelihood but following rigorous acquisition and processing workflows, which must be described in metadata and paradata. The new survey reveals some aspects of the historic water supply system for a better understanding of the construction of this monument and will be extended to the narrow tunnels included in the retaining wall around the grotto.

The need to investigate the topic of risk management of cultural heritage and to work on the regulatory framework relating to its protection and enhancement become even more urgent in light of the recent seismic events that hit the Italian territory. The current emergency planning methods against natural or human-induced hazards have proven to be deficient. Reflecting on the way we normally conceive the cultural assets, the question is not only how to protect our heritage, but how to shift our perception to conceive it as a positive asset, and not only a responsibility. Cultural heritage is not only a document of the identity of a community and a territory, but it can also be the keystone for reconstruction and building resilience to disasters. Starting from this awareness, this paper introduces a methodology for the analysis heritage sites aiming at proposing risk reduction strategies that consider the participatory dialogue between different professional figures. The approach is based on the consolidated methodological framework identified by UNESCO, ICCROM and ICOMOS. The study entails a preliminary evaluation of the most hazardous events, threats and risks that can impact on the heritage values. By considering a worst-case scenario, the procedure allows for modelling and stressing the post-event resilience of the site or cultural asset under consideration. The results of the investigation highlight the potential of this procedure in practical terms. In fact, its adaptability to different scales and contexts responds to the common need of a rapid, integrated methodology for risk assessment. Finally, the paper discusses the current prevention policies involving cultural heritage, focusing on the need to balance conservation and active protection issues to those of safety.

Stone-built cultural heritage exposed to urban environment represents a habitat where heterogeneous microbial communities can grow causing structural and aesthetical modifications and significant biodeterioration phenomena, the most common being colored patinas and crusts. An in-depth investigation of microbial community composition and its metabolic potential is essential to take the appropriate measures to control its growth. Conventional biocides remain the most used practical solution to control microbial growth, nevertheless, they may be dangerous for human health and the environment. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (SMFC) is a major architectural masterpiece in Florence (IT), and its conservation is a main issue of worldwide concern. The whole edifice is externally covered with polychrome stone panels consisting of white marbles, serpentinites and red limestones. Here we report a multidisciplinary investigation on the state of conservation of SMFC white marbles which show, in some extended areas, patinas and discoloration due to microbiological growth. This work provides new details on the deterioration of SMFC marble and, for the first time, on the microbial community involved. This preliminary knowledge will be used for planning field tests with innovative low environmental impact biocides, such as essential oils, to contrast biodeterioration.

The structural conservation of canvas paintings may require lining, a process in which a secondary canvas is adhered to the reverse of the damaged original canvas to provide additional support. Choosing the optimum adhesive or canvas for lining is challenging. Comprehensive data on thermal and mechanical behaviour of different adhesives to enable the conservator to make informed choices for their treatment purposes is scarce. Hence, in this study, four prevalently used adhesives for lining are chosen and their thermal and mechanical behaviour, such as the glass transition and melting temperatures, static lap shear strength and creep resistance, are compared. Thermal properties of the different adhesives are characterised using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Furthermore, the effect of temperature cycles (25, 35, and 45°C at a fixed relative humidity of 48%) on the creep behaviour of lined canvases is evaluated. Lap shear and creep experiments are performed on lined canvas mock-ups. The four adhesives tested are: studio formulations of an animal glue-wheat flour paste, as well as a beeswax-damar resin mixture; a patented formula based on an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer mixture (BEVA 371 O.F.™); and a mixture of two industrially produced acrylic copolymers (Plextol™ D541 and K360). The results demonstrate the remarkable effect of temperature on the creep behaviour of lined canvases, which can be related to their thermal stability.

The removal of aged and unwanted layers from the surface of a work of art is one of the most significant operations in the conservation process, but it is also complex, risky and hard to control. The plasma cleaning procedure has been tested successfully on different materials representative in the field of cultural heritage and has proven its many advantages compared to mechanical and chemical cleaning techniques. Despite the success of atmospheric pressure plasma treatment in the cleaning of easel paintings (i.e. the removal of thin films of varnishes, resins, re-paintings or deposits) it is still a new research area. This paper presents the use of atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) for the removal of aged varnish, wax and soot from the pictorial layer of an icon painting. The case study is conducted on a 19^th century wooden alms box with a painting of Saint John the Baptist and compares the influence of two different concentrations of the used gas mixture. Better cleaning result is obtained using APP Ar/O₂ 0.2%. The successful removal of the aged oil-resin varnish, wax and soot deposits, is assured without any mechanical and chemical modification of the underlying pictorial layer. The surface action of the plasma treatment is an important advantage compared to the use of aggressive solvents, mechanical shock, or local heating which is typical of traditional cleaning procedures. Furthermore, the non-contact treatment with plasma does not require preliminary consolidation of the treated surface, and avoids additional drawbacks. This method is a rare opportunity, especially in cases when the surface is protected by an organic material and could be neither safely, nor acceptably cleaned by the existing conventional techniques. Therefore, the use of plasma is proposed for the cleaning of icons as an alternative or complementary treatment to the existing techniques.

The present study tackles the problem of a sustainable and efficient conservation of cave art, by using innovative materials and techniques for the different steps of the restoration process - Biodeactivation, Biocolonization prevention and Consolidation. The Magura cave in northwest Bulgaria is the case study. It contains an impressive display of prehistoric paintings made of guano as far back as 5'500 years ago. In the last forty years the cave suffered progressive microbial colonization. The detrimental effects are biofilm formation, physical penetration into the stone and chemical reaction with the stone/paintings by pigments. Therefore, as a first step, we investigated biodeactivation by non-thermal plasma sterilization. The oxidative atmosphere obtained introducing Ar/O₂ (0.2 and 0.1) in the plasma device, was carried out on lab samples inoculated with the targeted for Magura Cave microorganisms. The main advantage of the non-contact treatment with atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) is the lack of any mechanical and chemical modification of the underlying stone/guano layers. As for sterilization of wounds on human skin the plasma treatment on wet surfaces produces mainly hydrogen peroxide and nitrates which lead to a localized reduction of the pH. The obtained biodeactivation is assured without heat (< 40 °C), toxic and environmentally harmful liquid. In a second step, we tested two possible alternatives for consolidation of the cave. A commercial ethyl silicate (ES) product was compared with an innovative phosphate treatment, based on application of a hydro-alcoholic solution of a phosphate salt (diammonium hydrogen phosphate, DAP). The consolidation efficiency and compatibility of the ES and DAP consolidants were investigated on samples representative for the Magura Cave substrate, i.e. stone alone and stone covered with guano to resemble the prehistoric drawings. In addition, a combination of plasma activation of the stone surface and consolidation was tested, to investigate whether the two treatments may have a synergistic effect, thus making the combined treatment more efficient than consolidation alone.

The approach to wooden artefacts of historical importance, and panel paintings in particular, is a task that requires a multidisciplinary approach based on experimental observation of the artwork and advanced techniques to make these data actually useful for the knowledge and preservation of the object. This study illustrates how a series of scientific observations and instrumental analyses can be used to construct a numerical simulation that allows a deeper understanding of the physical structure and behaviour of the object itself, namely to construct a hygro-mechanical predictive model (a "Digital-Twin") of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa panel. Based on specific request from the Louvre Museum, a group of experts with different and complementary skills cooperated and are still cooperating to construct a complete set of experimental observation and non-invasive tests; so, the integration of the collected data made the construction of the panel's Digital-Twin possible. This paper also specifically examines how the Digital-Twin can be used to compare two framing conditions of the panel; although the two experimental configurations are not inherently comparable, the comparison is made possible by the introduction of a technique of projection of the fields obtained as results of the two analyses, named the Projected Model Comparison (PMC), which has been developed specifically for this research.

Calcareous stones have been widely used as artwork and building materials by human civilizations, especially in the Mediterranean Basin. Calcareous stone deterioration is a consequence of the weathering action of physical, chemical and biological factors, which causes a progressive dissolution of the mineral matrix and an increase in porosity, resulting in the weakening of the structure. Recently, increased environmental pollution and global warming are threatening stone cultural heritage more than ever. Inorganic or organic products have been using to slow down monument deterioration, but their use presents several drawbacks. Bacterial Calcium Carbonate Mineralization is a natural process widespread among bacteria and occurring in different environments. In the last decades it has been proposed as a new and environmentally friendly tool in conservation of monumental and ornamental calcareous stones. The aim is to develop a bacteria-mediated mineralization treatment providing a coherent calcium carbonate layer on the surface of deteriorated stone, able to protect it against the intake of water and chemicals and to consolidate the inner weakening structure. The advantage is to obtain a mineral product similar to the calcareous stone substrate, mimicking the natural process responsible for stone formation. This review introduces the mechanisms of bacterial mineralization and describes the current strategies based on this process to promote stone reinforcement in field tests. They include applications of selected bacterial strains and/or culture media as well as selected components of bacterial cells on stone. The review finally provides perspectives based on recent advances.

Mortar aging and deterioration are serious problem for architectural heritage conservation. The solution might be sought in advanced functional materials which could provide repair and lasting surface protection from atmospheric pollution and microbiological corrosion. In recent years, extensive studies have been conducted on the use of bacteria with biocalcification potential for self-healing effect in cements materials, but only a few publications deal with self-healing capacity of historical lime-based mortars.

The main focus of our research was development of new bio-activated self-healing system and its application in laboratory conditions. The objects of the work were historical mortar samples from medieval Bač Fortress in Serbia and laboratory prepared and aged mortar models. Aiming to achieve high compatibility, laboratory models were prepared based on our previous results of historical mortars characterization. The bio-activated self-healing agent was made as two-component liquid system using bacterial cells of Sporosarcina pasteurii DSM 33 and nutrients. The components of the models were hydraulic lime, milled limestone, river sand, and crashed brick as aggregates, and water. Comparative characterization of historic mortars and aged models was performed by mechanical and colorimetric testing as well as examination of mutual interaction and cohesion between old and new material.

The next step was efficiency evaluation of the external bacteria-based repair healing method in/on the laboratory samples. The detailed study of the cracks of the historical samples and the prepared models, and the bacterial suspension diffusion assessment were done by comparison of the results obtained by different complementary imaging techniques (optical and scanning electron microscopy). The experiments were performed on both samples of old and new materials treated with and without bio-activated self-healing agent.

The obtained results are promising and support the development of the external bio-activated self-healing method. This solution represents functional system which could allow historical mortars and modern structures to heal themselves in the long-term, preserving their functional and aesthetic properties.

Colour always played a role in the human evolutionary process and has been used as a way of expression. But the time, the lack of maintenance and abandonment, the lack of studies related to the presence of polychromy in architecture and the nineteenth-century idea of eliminating building plasters to expose stone and brick have caused many to ignore and forgotten the presence of colour in historical buildings. In most cases disappear leaving only traces of colours. For this reason the aim of this research is study the polychromy on stone of a 16th century gothic Portal in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo. Analyses were performed using non-destructive techniques as Transmission Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy / Energy Dispersive Elemental Analysis X-Ray (SEM/EDX), Gas Chromatography (GC) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). To determinate the colour was used a CIELAB System and Munsell Colour System. In conclusion patinas yellow, ochre, red, green and blue colours; and pigmented successive layers of plaster and lime was found. Remains of these layers of polychromies are also spread throughout many areas of the Cathedral.

The introduction of two-wheel chariots, pulled by horses, was a key technological innovation in the Bronze Age. Archaeological evidences, found in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia, allowed identifying various chariot typologies and understanding their main features. However, many questions about the function of single pieces and the behavior of the vehicles are still open. In a previous work, a war chariot wheel, found in northern Italy and known as the "Mercurago wheel", was studied with an engineering approach. In this paper, the whole vehicle, to which the wheel was hypothesized to belong, was studied. In particular, two chariot typologies, differing mainly for the axle position, were analyzed. The stiffness of the various chariot parts were characterized by means of static finite element analyses. These data were subsequently used as input parameters in running multibody dynamics simulations. Finite element dynamical simulations were carried out as well. The analyses results allowed determining the crucial effect of some parts, particularly the cockpit floor, in favoring the passenger stability in dangerous conditions, such as bumping. The effect of the axle position on the passenger and wheel trajectory were evaluated as well.

One of the main issues of the international research project SyMBoL - Sustainable Management of Heritage Buildings in a Long-term perspective, is the evaluation of wood mechanical properties. Particularly, pine wood is tested being the main building materials of medieval Norwegian stave churches. Experiments are aimed to assess variations in mechanical properties as a function of environmental conditions. Being wood highly sensitive to RH% changes, pine slices were maintained at 80% RH (4 weeks, 20°C) and successively treated with the materials here discussed on the two main surfaces; afterward, they were left at 30% RH for three weeks. Thus, the loss of water from the samples is supposed to occur only through the lateral surfaces since the chosen sealing materials were selected on the basis of their capability to avoid any penetration of water into the samples. This work represents, indeed, the study carried out to select materials to be applied on the wooden surfaces. Paraloid B72, also coupled with a cellulose sand seal spray, a microcrystalline wax and an epoxy resin were tested. Obtained surfaces were evaluated in term of water repellency (contact angle measurements), uniformity of the surface; penetration of the materials into the wooden structures, colour and water vapor sorption.

In the last decades a number of microbial biotechnology applications have been put into practice for the conservation of cultural heritages. Soft approaches to the bio-cleaning and bio-restoration of cultural heritage are in constant demand in addition to deep understanding of microbial bio-deterioration. Recent research has addressed this issue by different perspectives, highlighting how separate disciplines such biology, microbiology, biochemistry are taking the problem from each own view. However, in the last years the integration of these disciplines have increased the range of tools for conservation and promotion. This commentary shows recent examples of concrete exploitation of the integration of these applications in the field of cultural heritage. Current application of omics techniques and their use for restorers and conservators still rest on the assumption that this omics revolution will be – at some point, important. This commentary includes combination of evidences showing we are a step further: having used a combination of key papers in support, this perspective shows how such applications are already bringing important tools for conservators. Taken together, these sources of evidence are provocative and at the same time similarly stimulating and convincing.

Lithic artworks as churches, historical buildings and every usage object are our precious cultural heritage, memory of our past history step needed to build present and future. These artistic heritages with morphological, chemical and physical properties totally dissimilar make they a "unicum", characterized by a specific vulnerability. Their decay is unavoidable, but it is a challenge for the humankind to protect and preserve them. Thus far, solutions for the safeguard of cultural heritage are usually based on chemical procedures to remove biodeteriogen agents, but these substances can be hazardous to the environment, to public health and to stone materials itself because it is not known about the consequences of repeated applications. Then the restoration methods require innovative approaches, eco-friendly and not harmful to human beings and the environment. Aiming at this objective a deeply study on two rupestrian churches located in Matera (Italy) was carried out in order to prevent and/or control microbial and biological evolution, and to exploit the potential of some bacterial species in the interventions of stone consolidation. Surface analyses of detached rocks to evaluate the (i) stone composition, (ii) isolation and characterization of biological and (iii) microbial colonizers present on the stone surfaces were formerly performed.

In vitro bioactivity test against autotrophic/heterotrophic species isolated was carried out using secondary metabolites extracted from cultivated crops and spontaneous herbs with a strong biocidal activity (extracts from Solanum nigrum, Volutaria lippii, Moricandia arvensis, Pulicaria inuloides). Finally, calcinogenic activity tests employing native bacteria (Bacillus strains) isolated on stone surfaces of the two churches constitute the conclusive research step. Glycoalkaloids inhibited all bacterial strains tested. Some strains of Bacillus to produce the greatest amount of crystals, coherent with the stone substrate, was evidenced. This research highlights the opportunity to change the way of thinking and performing recovery actions for cultural heritage. Not last-minute remediation but continuous monitoring and time by time actions to avoid the formation of aggressive colonisations.

Application of protective coatings is the most widely used conservation treatment for outdoor bronzes. Eco-friendly and non-hazardous coatings are currently needed for conservation of outdoor bronze monuments. To fulfil this need, the M-ERA.NET European research project B-IMPACT (Bronze-IMproved non-hazardous PAtina CoaTings) aimed at assessing the protectiveness of innovative coatings for historical and modern bronze monuments exposed outdoors.

In this project, two bronze substrates (historical Cu-Sn-Zn-Pb and modern Cu-Si-Mn alloys) were artificially patinated, by acid rain solution using dropping test and by "liver of sulphur" procedure (K₂S aqueous solution) to obtain black patina, respectively. Subsequently, the application of several newly developed protective coatings was carried out and their performance was investigated by preliminary electrochemical tests. In the following steps of the work, the assessment of the best-performing coatings was carried out and their performance was compared to Incralac, one of the most widely used protective coatings in conservation practice. A multi-analytical approach was adopted, considering artificial ageing (carried out in representative conditions, including exposure to rain runoff, stagnant rain and UV radiation) and metal release, as well as visual aspect (so as to include aesthetical impact among the coating selection parameters) and morphological and structural evolution of the coated surfaces due to simulated outdoor exposure. Lastly, also the health impact of selected coatings was assessed by occupational hazard tests. The removability and re-applicability of the best-performing coatings were also assessed. The best alternatives to the conventional Incralac exhibited were: (i) fluoroacrylate blended with methacryloxy-propyl-trimethoxy-silane (FA-MS) applied on patinated Cu-Sn-Zn-Pb bronze and (ii) 3-mercapto-propyl-trimethoxysilane (PropS-SH) applied on patinated Cu-Si-Mn bronze.

In order to ensure the proper conservation of the book heritage, the hygrothermal conditions of the rooms where the books are stored must respect precise ranges of temperature and relative humidity. The paper deals with the study and the optimization of the conservation conditions of the book heritage in historic buildings by a case stud y, namely "Sala del Dottorato". This room is one of the University of Perugia most exquisite rooms, because of its decorations and the presence of rare and ancient books (27 incunabula; the oldest piece of the collection is an edition of St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, printed in 1470). The room is located on the first floor of Palazzo Murena and it was originally the monastery library. From the Sixties and up to a few years ago, the room hosted the discussions of PhD final thesis, while now is used to host the most representative meetings of the University. This involves the presence of a significant number of people for a brief period of time, causing the alteration of the environmental parameters. The present study was carried out by an experimental campaign (temperature, relative humidity, CO₂) aimed to understand the microclimatic critical issues in order to develop a permanent monitoring system; this system should notify when the microclimatic conditions are out of the range for conservation and people comfort, giving information about the possible actions to restore the correct environmental conditions.

The epoch of globalization asks for a review in teaching methods of the combined university level art subjects, not only in terms of the aspect of scientific achievements but also regarding intangible heritage. In country like Albania that is still undergoing the consequences of a half century long experiment on the homogenization of art, culture and intangible heritage. In the global era of the 21st century, the west European teaching methods of disciplines that study the cultural expressions of "Eurocentric" concept should face the development of the cultural cosmos and mentality of other non-European people. Confrontations of homogenous methodologies have produced unpredictable consequences according to the reciprocal incomprehension and rejection of different cultures. Two of these cases are the first human artistic expression (the geometric patterns of petroglyph of the raddle ochre stone in the Blombos Cave), and the string game, the oldest games in the history of mankind. The geometric patterns of the petroglyph of Blombos and patterns of the string games are similar in many cultures and populations in different times and contexts. Those patterns and the rules of games are the same but the way they are used and played with changes. In order to try and face these problems, the teaching methods of artistic expressions in the Albanian Intangible Heritage with Albanian students, are in the process of identification of common elements that connect the natural cultural Albanian cosmos with that of other people.

STORM project was the best opportunity to cope with the challenge of merging computer and communication technologies with human and cultural oriented practices in conservation and restoration. The result of this powerful synergy between these two approaches (technology and CH needs) in view of mitigating effects on cultural heritage, is expected to enormously increase the mitigation of the damages created by climate change disasters. The main question, coming from the experience gained, is how we can capitalize the acquired expertise in the future. This will probably be done using strategies which could rely on local financial support and the possibility to have advanced regulations provided by local authorities. Communication between different actors will play a major role in the future achievements: the project faced a big challenge in establishing good communication among different competences so to say that now, after a three year project, it should be great to start a new experience counting on the level of friendship and communication achieved during the STORM project. But communication is also the key element of emergency management. The recent event which affected the Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris, 15/04/2019), was a matter of discussion between STORM partners and during those discussion we concluded that probably the proper preparedness was not in place. Preparedness could have dramatically reduced the reaction time and the effectiveness of intervention after a disaster. As a final though we are convinced that new professions could grow from the project experience, starting from cultural heritage experts such as conservators, restorers, archaeologists, architects, art historian involving specific branches of engineering; that could create new job opportunities for all those people provided that they will receive the proper education and practice experience..

This contribution is a wake-up call to custodians of cultural heritage to get ready and prepare for the next platform – the 3D and 4D experiences of the nascent Mirrorworld. Built upon the first generations of online experience, the sprawling communication platform of the World Wide Web, and driven by the ubiquitous reach of social networks and online gaming, the Mirrorworld will breach the glass ceiling of 2D experiences to draw us into a fully functioning 3D environment. Public institutions that manage cultural heritage for visitors, such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMS), are ideally placed to seed the spatial communications network that will drive the new platform. Despite the formidable challenges to be surmounted, it is up to custodians of cultural heritage to become proactive in building the Mirrorworld rather than to wait for third party actors to advance commercial interests with imitation culture, simulated histories, or made-up stories. As gatekeepers of cultural artefacts, GLAMs have the capability, the experience, and even the responsibility to tell their stories forcefully, accurately and in fully-functioning 4D.

This work aims at presenting an underwater image application to obtain an improved 3D model of cultural assets. In 2016, more than 500 images were acquired by a GoPro Camera with a low resolution of 72 dpi and focal length of 3 mm, without flash and are now used to reconstruct the 3D model of some amphoras of a Roman shipwreck found in Albenga (Italy). We have applied state-of-art image enhancement techniques, such as ACE, CLAHE, LAB and SP algorithms, to improve the quality of underwater images affected by low contrast, poor visibility conditions, not uniform lighting, colour variations, noise and blur effect. The visual quality has been evaluated through quantitative metrics, like average luminance, information entropy, average gradient of image, UCIQE and UIQM. Then, our efforts have been devoted to the dense 3D point cloud generation using a SfM-MVS software. In particular, the 3D reconstruction results are in line with the metric evaluation: in fact, the more accurate 3D objects are obtained from that enhanced dataset with the highest measured image quality.

Archaeological documentation is a fundamental step for research and conservation planning phases. Nowadays traditional recording is always supported by geomatics technologies which offer important support to the growth of archaeological study. The integration of sensors and methodologies seems to give the best results, in terms of time, costs and accuracy of products. In particular, the combination of Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) can help the documentation of complex sites and the production of 3D and 2D products for different purposes. The paper focuses on the integration of TLS and UAV methodologies to record the thermal baths of the Roman Domus in the archaeological Park of Lylibaeum (Marsala, Italy). The combination of range and image data are useful to achieve a complete 3D model and a high-resolution orthophoto of the site, in order to provide accurate and complete documentation for archaeological research and conservative project.

This paper presents the geomatic contribution to the hydrographical survey applied to the Arno River in Tuscany (Italy) that has been performed to obtain both underwater cross-sections as well as riverbank height using point cloud data from echo-sounder and terrestrial laser scanner so that water flow storage capability could be further estimated with high accuracy. The control network and ground control points design, measurement and adjustment are presented, describing the solutions adopted to face the specific needs of the project. The overall accuracy assessment is performed considering some known vertices: the results are fully compliant with the requirements for subsequent hydrological analysis.

3D acquisition methods and systems for totally or partially submerged cultural heritage (CH) allow the developments of methods able to integrate complex BIM projects for rivers, lakes, maritime structures and infrastructures with the world of Virtual Reality (VR) and BIM monitoring. Thanks to an open approach this paper shows the results obtained in the field of programming language for the development of an open-source BIM platform able to get e fusion between the application fields of BIM sensor, monitoring, historic building information modelling (HBIM) and VR. Several preliminary test results are reported in order to show the potential of the proposed method for multiple research case studies, and also proposing future perspectives and developments oriented to get a holistic, inclusive and unified platform able to manage complex scenarios accurately such heritage sites subject to the risk of flood and water level changes.

The survey of archaeological monuments presents particular needs and difficulties. Such surveys must in fact be as complete, geometrically correct and accurately geo-referenced as possible. These needs, however, often face problems of difficult accessibility, the need for rapid timing and complex logistical conditions. The latest generation of mobile phones are equipped with ultra-high resolution cameras up to 100 megapixel. Although they do not have the geometric characteristics of professional cameras, they can be used advantageously for the reconstruction of three-dimensional models using Structure from Motion methodologies . At the same time, the latest mobile phones are equipped with GPS/GNSS chips that allow a postprocessing of their positioning allowing to reach decimetric/centimetric accuracies. The use of sensors integrated in a mobile phone greatly simplify the survey both in terms of transportability but also in terms of authorizations by the competent authorities as the equipment is exactly the same that most tourists who visit the sites themselves bring with them. The approach proposed and made possible by these combined features in a latest generation mobile phone have been tested for a rapid survey of the Intihuatana stone in Machu Picchu (Peru), a site with considerable logistical and organizing complexity.

The successful management of archaeological wood finds from waterlogged sites starts in the planning phase of any excavation. From the moment of exposure, waterlogged wood finds are extremely vulnerable to a range of man-made and natural threats. There is a real risk of losing the artefact if it is not handled and conserved properly. This paper describes the process leading to the creation of CEN TC346 Standards for waterlogged wood, and how they will be applied within archaeological excavations and conservation. These, it is confidently expected, will provide European archaeologists, conservators and archaeological curators clear guidelines and decision-making tools for effectively managing finds of wood from waterlogged sites.

Every year, cultural heritage all over the world is lost or damaged under the devastating impact of climate change and natural hazards. Many times these damages are irreversible and often result from insufficient and disjointed preparedness systems, unable to cope with these threats. Awareness of this situation and the urgent need to find solutions for it has been a motivational call to taking actions towards the raising of consciousness of all involved, the incentive to training and the sharing of good practices. Project STORM -Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Technical and Organisational Resources Management (funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme – H2020-DRS-11-2015: Disaster Resilience & Climate), introduced a new vision for authorities, first responders and civil protection services towards cultural heritage, by proposing new policies and recommendations. This new paradigm based on the STORM experience sets the way towards the implementation of an overtly risk-oriented approach to the preservation of heritage sites, following the objectives that guided the STORM project through the development of new operative proposal – STORM 5 Cs – for different levels of intervention and responsibilities, namely: Heritage Conservation and management guidelines and procedures at site and government levels; Communication between climate researchers and heritage managers, including government authorities, in particular concerning the scientific body of knowledge built on climate change, aiming to improve adaptation strategies; Coping and adaptive capacities of heritage sites and organisations to meet their specific risks, and namely the actions that may enhance their resilience facing disasters; Cooperation between the different actors involved in the disaster risk management (DRM) of cultural heritage, which is demonstrably a cross-sectorial endeavour; Capacity building of heritage professionals, as well as of other pertinent stakeholders, via training and education at diverse levels in site-specific DRM measures and climate change adaptation. Regarding the safeguarding policies for cultural heritage to face natural hazards, STORM recommends the adoption of disaster reduction policies that lead to the creation of effective natural disaster reduction, i.e., the adoption of a new pathway that takes us from safeguard to effective protection of cultural heritage.

The current world is increasingly supported by a knowledge-based economy, where technological, economic, political, social and cultural changes modify the nature of human relationships. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) revolution along with the spread of different and faster channels have become important driver to disseminate knowledge and information. In this changing landscape, knowledge is considered one of the most valuable assets able to generate growth and competitive advantage. Knowledge sharing plays a central role specifically during emergency, allowing the access to and the availability of critical information regarding risks and disasters. Lack of information complicates the efficient management of catastrophes and weakens the decision-making processes. For these reasons, it is fundamental to develop an infrastructure able to manage knowledge and, most specifically, to increase economic and social values fostering knowledge creation and sharing, to use innovation to perform better, to be updated and to enhance sustainability. In such complex situations, the STORM project aims at building a collaborative and dynamic environment allowing the actors to interact with each other and to join their efforts towards highest levels of cooperation and coordinated decision making approaches. Making fast and efficient decisions requires supporting tools allowing a prompt situational picture and critical information sharing based on effective use and coordination of resources, people, and information, where information and knowledge are distributed. In the context of the STORM project, the proposed tools and services enabled by IT technologies enhance collaboration, co-ordination and to support decision making amongst stakeholders, providing, at any moment, a clear situational picture. Existing knowledge (e.g. best practice, guidelines, lessons learned, procedures and processes, etc.) related to natural disaster risks and impacts can help teams of experts in making decisions and sharing new knowledge (e.g. from the situational picture, risk assessment and data analytics) for a prompt and more effective recovery. As a main benefit, the involved actors will be aware about the formulation and selection of risk reduction measures based on available risk information and stakeholders' needs, speeding up response time where the right people with the relevant skills and disaster events are identified in a more timely manner.

Continuing anthropogenic induced climate change poses risks to Cultural Heritage (CH) across the world. In the UK, concerns about future flood risks, increased number of heatwaves and changes to freeze-thaw cycles are at the forefront for managers of CH assets. Importantly, in the UK, and unlike many European countries, cultural, natural and built heritage sites are often run by or with the help of groups of volunteers, whether that being at a national level working in partnership with organisations like Historic England or at a local level with small community trusts. Mellor Archaeological Trust is one such local charity which aims to preserve, maintain and protect the local CH assets for our community and future generations. Climate change and its impacts are, therefore, a big concern for the trust as it looks to plan for the future. After a successful pilot of the STORM service, Mellor was able to demonstrate how the use of inexpensive and novel technologies can help small and large volunteer-led organisations in protecting heritage whilst ensuring that correct procedures are followed. In this paper, we demonstrate the successful use of the STORM service from a UK perspective explaining the benefits and drawbacks and highlight how such services should be utilised by other organisations.

In response to the adverse effects of natural hazards and climate change threats on cultural heritage, a methodology of risk assessment and management was developed and applied to five pilot sites: the Historical Centre of Rethymno in Greece, the Mellor Heritage Project in the United Kingdom, the Roman Ruins of Tróia in Portugal, the Baths of Diocletian in Italy, and the Ancient City of Ephesus in Turkey. According to the methodology, a practical and easy-to-use tool was implemented to help the end-users in managing the impacts of natural hazards and climate change on their cultural heritage sites. The tool comprises three major phases: Site Hazard Assessment, Risk Assessment, and Risk Management Strategies. It assists site managers and experts to identify sudden- and slow-onset natural hazards and climate change threats and to assess their corresponding risks to different areas of the pilot sites. The tool is linked to a web-GIS service, which is capable of providing hazard and risk information and maps for each pilot site. The module Risk Management Strategies enables the user to define risk treatment strategies and associated measures in response to each hazard. Overall, the tool facilitates a shared understanding of the risk data and maps among the multiple stakeholders engaged in the protection of cultural heritage sites to enable a more effective decision-making process.

The STORM (H2020 700191), experience give us evidence on how it is important to address risks coming from natural hazards with the proper preparedness. Anyhow the project left one face of the picture uncovered. The aim of this paper is to stimulate further discussions related to digitised documentation and digital cultural assets safety either if they are digital born or reproduction of real ones. In 2003, UNESCO released the "Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage"[1], which defines digital heritage as "made up of computer-based materials of enduring value that should be kept for future generations (UNESCO 2003)". Digital heritage emanates from different communities, industries, sectors and regions. Not all digital material is of enduring value, but a paramount volume of digital objects, especially the digital documentation related to cultural heritage, require active preservation approaches regardless the technology evolution. . It should be a priority to preserve that digital patrimony as well as to preserve the physical one. For this reason we aggregate the two view points in the "Digital heritage". The challenge is represented by the preservation from one side of the digital born objects (including all the cultural heritage documentation), from the other objects coming from the conversion of existing/disappeared ones, must be protected and preserved. We are facing day by day a wider scenario where gallery, library, archive, and museum (GLAM)[2] dependence from digital content preservation is growing so the need for a lifecycle management of digital materials is necessary to ensure their continuity.

The integration between solar energy systems and building components is highly critical in sensitive heritage contexts. On the one hand there is the need for finding a balance between the preservation of the aesthetic appearance and the historical values, but on the other hand, finding the space where to effectively integrate the systems might be quite challenging. The solar systems can be divided in photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal (ST) systems. Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) and Building Integrated Solar Thermal (BIST) are PV or ST panels integrated into the building envelope, combining the energy generation with other functions, such as noise, weather protection, thermal insulation, sun shadow, and other aspects. Nowadays, the dynamism of the market allows to design highly compatible products which look like traditional architecture materials. This situation fosters the integration of these products in the BIPV and BIST systems within the heritage sites, especially thanks to the use of advanced customisation processes, special and low-reflecting glasses, and innovative cost-competitive coatings. There is a limited number of studies on the application of these technologies in heritage contexts, due to the presence of architectonic, conservative, and cultural barriers. This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive review of the available literature on the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) in heritage sites and buildings, which would foster the preservation of their cultural and natural values as well as reducing primary energy consumption, increasing comfort levels, minimizing environmental impacts, and improving technical quality and economical outlays. A common framework will thus defined to support restorers, historic conservators, and energy experts and to facilitate the diffusion and application of RES in heritage contexts. This conceptual framework will provide industries and academics with operative strategies and will encourage their diffusion and application in sensible contexts.

The object of the present paper is the acoustic study of Palazzo Borghese, one of the most important buildings of the neoclassical period present in Florence, which occupies the entire block between Via Ghibellina and Via dei Pandolfini. The Palace has been interested by various architectural interventions occurred in different historical periods. In 1437 a series of grandiose works of unification, enlargement and modernization were undertaken by Michelozzo who created a grand palace with a large open loggia much admired at the time. In 1709 a large, still existing, ballroom was built with a stage for the orchestra. The last major renovation was carried out at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Camillo Borghese: on the first floor, the monumental rooms, above all the main hall and the hall of mirrors, stand out for their magnificence, with a great profusion of gilded stuccoes, marble statues, columns, carved chandeliers, paintings.

Currently some areas of the building are used for receptions, conferences and events, while others are part of a receptive structure, residences and offices. The contiguity of spaces, characterized by very different acoustic requirements and by the presence of three very silent internal courtyards on which these spaces overlook, led to the emergence of numerous acoustic problems whose solution is made particularly delicate by the historical-artistic constraints present on the building. In order to identify the acoustic criticalities, several campaigns of acoustic measurements have been carried out, both during the reception activities and through the use of a sample source.

This investigation allowed to determine the structural weaknesses of the building and to identify the most appropriate technical and smart interventions compatible with the structural constraints and historical-artistic protection of the property.

BIM is becoming one of the main methodology in the field of the cultural heritage, to create digital models, aiming to take place of the real historic buildings for investigation, analysis and simulations. However it is still an open problem the validation of H-BIM models, to ensure reliability of the archived information. In fact there are two main aspects to achieving an H-BIM model: the first relates to the process of converting geometric data captured from survey into parametric elements and their semantic modelling; the second one relates to the definition of BIM use that will heavily influence the same modelling stage. The paper deals with a methodology of survey data modelling and model validation, highlighting the need to create a database, containing geometric data and information, in order to ensure reliability and usability over time. It is presented the case study of "Morgana Fairy" fount, built by Bernardo Vecchietti in 1573 and adorned with Gianbologna's sculptures at Bagno a Ripoli in Florence. The model has been validated by a geometric comparing analysis of the deviation between the model itself and the mesh obtained with the acquired point cloud data.

This mini-review reports a novel way for exploring the world Cultural Heritage, in the absence of damage or contamination of the items under investigation, called the EVA technique. It is based on films of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) impregnated with strong anion and cation exchangers and hydrophobic resins, C₈ and C₁₈. When in contact with any surface these films can harvest nano-moles of macromolecules as well as metabolites, which can then be identified by standard instrumentation (e.g. mass spectrometry). Some applications related to microbial contaminations are reported, such as the findings of Koch bacterium in Chekhov's shirt and in a letter by Orwell to a Russian journal editor as well as the Y. pestis and anthrax bacteria in the death registries of Milan's lazaretto in the 1630 plague bout. Novel findings are offered too, such as the identifications of three different strains of Aspergillus in the Aleppo Codex and the detection of melanin (produced by A. niger) in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is hoped that the present methodology could open the doors of museums, state archives and private collections for detecting biological traces left by artists, literates and men of culture in their masterpieces.

Close-Range Photogrammetry is a widespread and efficient technique in the 3D acquisition of artefacts, particularly in fields like Cultural Heritage. Despite this wide usage, also due to a convenient quality/cost ratio, it shows some limitations due to light conditions as well as the artefact surface finishing. In this paper, we would like to report the assessment of a photogrammetry approach to 3D capture metal reflective surfaces, such as bronze, which is a widely used material in ancient statues. To this aim, we propose a photogrammetry workflow based on systematic steps capable of overcome some of the main issues of reflective surfaces. To validate this approach, the developed 3D model is compared to a more accurate model of the same artefact, obtained with a 3D scanner. As a case study, we selected the Principe Ellenistico, an ancient bronze statue conserved in the Museo Nazionale Romano (Rome, Italy), of which a photogrammetric model is firstly developed and then compared to the scanned one.