Andrea Pasquali / Angela Mancuso
(Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italia)

Keywords: Polylobate plant, digital survey, Baptistery, Lucca, Nymphaeum

Abstract:
Church of Ss. Giovanni and Reparata is located inside the ancient town walls of Lucca, Toscana, and it is an example of a multi-layered building, grown on an ancient roman domus and become a whole consisting in a Baptistery and a church. The first settlement church is dated at 754A.D. and after some evolutions has evolved to the current configuration and now is the subject of relevant Archaeology-Architectural studies, as well as some interesting discussions.
The Baptistery has had various incarnations: from a roman layout has probably evolved at first in a proto-Christian building and then in an architecture more suited to the needs of the urban evolution.
The Poster presented focusing on the transformation of the Baptistery, will center on its first version, characterized by a central polylobate plan, up to confute the actual reading of the construction phases which is intended to indicate the presence of a Prime Baptistery on which was built the present.
The research work is developed on the analysis of the walls and the comparison with the similar Baptistery of Biella, Piemonte, rare example of existing baptistery polylobated, built in the tenth century of an ancient roman domus. The result looks like hypothesis of the presence of a roman Nymphaeum on which developed the current configuration of Lucca at the expense of the presence of a Prime Baptistery. Using various survey methodologies as digital laser scanning and photogrammetry SFM, offers a different method of comparison by which to develop alternative hypotheses about the evolution construction of this monument.
Along with this we want to highlight the flexibility of investigation that allow digital techniques, supported by quick and easy production of digital models of comparison, setting an example of “correct documentation” through the intersection of cultural analytical methods, of their own architecture and metric survey.