Cristiana BARANDONI
(Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Italy)
Abstract: MannInColours project is at the conclusion of its first year of work; the amount of scientific data acquired is of considerable importance. Now we face the need to use these data for collective knowledge. After analytical and archaeological studies and systematic photogrammetric campaign, the 3D models obtained offer an unmissable opportunity to rewrite events and collecting history. In connection with the undergoing project, MannInColours, we decided to focus on a selected group of statues from the Baths of Caracalla, among which are Colossal head of Antoninus Pius, Farnese Bull, Athena and Hercules Farnese, with the goals of digitally documenting, restoring, and recontextualizing them. After the statues have been digitized and the related 3D models have been made (so-called “state models”), the damage will be digitally repaired (including the loss of polychromy, which—even in the absence of physical traces—will be experimentally restored following the suggestions of Jan Ostergaard and Vinzenz Brinkmann). These “restoration models” will then be recontextualized in the scientifically recreated architecture of the Baths of Caracalla. The aim is twofold: to support scholarly research, and to advance public understanding by presenting a version of the monochrome marble originals that is certainly closer to historical reality and this is the reason why this experimental project is based on a simple but effective assumption that all scholars have long accepted and shared: reconstruction is a fundamental component of the acquisition of knowledge. Only an attempt to restore the original appearance of the sculptures will open up important questions of a technical, artistic, aesthetic and iconographic nature [V. Brinkmann, “Art of Many Colors,” in Serial/Portable Classic, 2015]
The report presented at this conference brings together the multidata in a single large purpose: the reconstruction of the context