RICERCA ITALIANA     

PAINTINGS, MOSAICS AND SCULPTURAL FURNITURES IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM (VI-XIV CENTURIRS): SYSTEMS OF VISUAL REMDERING AND MULTIMEDIA INTERACTIVE ARCHIVES.

Università degli Studi della Tuscia

Abstract

Our research project deals with Italian and Byzantine pictorial art (mosaics, wall-paintings, wooden paintings) and sculpture furniture in the Middle ages (6th-14th centuries), and is intended to provide two different lines of investigation:
• The first regards the iconographic systems, the materials and the techniques;
• The second concerns the relationship between monumental painting and sculpture furniture in their monumental context.
The first research line is articulated in four distinct research paths which will provide a full picture of the works of art structure (pictorial and sculptural) – as both ‘image’ and ‘matter’– and their respective architectural contexts.
The second line of research concerns the application of the informatic systems for the visualization of pictorial, mosaic and sculptural documentation. Although this project area is based on the results obtained in previous studies, it is essentially the most innovative part of the whole research.
As regards the monumental painting field, the general path is divided in two levels.
a) The improvement of an interactive multimedia archives and the visualization of pictorial decoration – through informatic system of representation application.
b) The design and creation of the Web portal ‘Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma’.For the realization of these two objectives the research Unity University of Viterbo, Department “Studi per la Conoscenza e la Valorizzione dei Beni Storici e Artistici” in close collaboration with the research Unity University of Chieti, will focus on the incrementation of data by measurement reliefs on one hand, and on the visualization of the pictorial and mosaic documents on the other. The research group of Chieti is essential for this part of the study. In this context the database “Egeria. Mediterranean mosaics and wall paintings (4th-14th centuries). Images, materials and techniques” proves a highly important tool to archive and link the different resources (photographs, graphics, surveys, analyses) applied to various kinds of objects (wall paintings, wooden paintings, mosaics, sculpture, architecture). New data integration allows to obtain written information (report, charts, statistics) on each work.
The aim of this study is to add to the first phase of the project, previously completed, a second step consisting in the image integration of data. As a result the photographic and graphic reproductions of the works will cease to be static documents turning into interactive platforms through which showing the information recorded in the different databases becomes possible.
The images will replace the traditional interface of databases, allowing the direct interaction with the work of art. An example of interaction between different data through a digital system of visual rendering is the work conducted by Maria Andoloro and the research Unity DISCOVABESA on the first three volumes of the Atlas “La pittura medievale a Roma (312-1431). Corpus and Atlas” in nine volumes to be published soon (see M. Andaloro, La Pittura medievale a Roma. Corpus Atlante, vol. I, Milano, Jaca Book, 2006).
Therefore, it is essential to use a multimedia system, such as a portal Web, so that the interactive character of the different data of the whole amount of digital materials will be effectively displayed. The design and creation of the portal Web ‘Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma’ is precisely the most ambitious objective of the whole project.
The project is experimental and has an interdisciplinary character therefore the application of its investigation model is possible only on few examples selected among paintings, mosaics, panel paintings, ceiling paintings, marble furniture in Rome, Latium, Campania, Sicily, Sardinia, Istanbul in the cave churches of Cappadocia, Syria, and Sinai. <<<

Principal Investigator

Maria Crocifissa Andaloro Università degli Studi della TUSCIA

Research Objectives

Our research project deals with Italian and Byzantine pictorial art (mosaics, wall-paintings, wooden paintings) and sculpture furniture in the Middle ages (6th-14th centuries), and is intended to provide two different lines of investigation:
• The first regards the iconographic systems, the materials and the techniques;
• The second concerns the relationship between monumental painting and sculpture furniture in their monumental context.

The first research line is articulated in four distinct research paths which will provide a full picture of the works of art structure (pictorial and sculptural) – as both ‘image’ and ‘matter’– and their respective architectural contexts.
The research paths are the following:

a) iconographic and stylistic analyses
b) delineation and study of the techniques
c) identification of materials
d) investigation on the monumental context

The point c) “identification of materials” is based on the analytic scientific plan improved in the previous PRIN and largely applied in the meantime, which provides:
• pigment, binder, mortar analyses both for paintings and sculptures
• glass and stone analyses of mosaic tesserae
• wood analysis of the support of the panel paintings
• recognition of the marble or limestone used, etc. for the sculptures.
In addition to the already tested analytic scientific plan, the study will focus on the pigment analysis through Micro-Raman spectrometry.
The second line of research concerns the application of the informatic systems for the visualization of pictorial, mosaic and sculptural documentation. Although this project area is based on the results obtained in previous studies, it is essentially the most innovative part of the whole research.
As regards the monumental painting field, the general path is divided in two levels.
a) The improvement of an interactive multimedia archives and the visualization of pictorial decoration – through informatic system of representation application.
b) The design and creation of the Web portal ‘Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma’.

For the realization of these two objectives the research Unity University of Viterbo, Department “Studi per la Conoscenza e la Valorizzione dei Beni Storici e Artistici” in close collaboration with the research Unity University of Chieti, will focus on the incrementation of data by measurement reliefs on one hand, and on the visualization of the pictorial and mosaic documents on the other. The research group of Chieti is essential for this part of the study. In this context the database “Egeria. Mediterranean mosaics and wall paintings (4th-14th centuries). Images, materials and techniques” proves a highly important tool to archive and link the different resources (photographs, graphics, surveys, analyses) applied to various kinds of objects (wall paintings, wooden paintings, mosaics, sculpture, architecture). New data integration allows to obtain written information (report, charts, statistics) on each work.
The aim of this study is to add to the first phase of the project, previously completed, a second step consisting in the image integration of data. As a result the photographic and graphic reproductions of the works will cease to be static documents turning into interactive platforms through which showing the information recorded in the different databases becomes possible.
The images will replace the traditional interface of databases, allowing the direct interaction with the work of art.
An example of interaction between different data through a digital system of visual rendering is the work conducted by Maria Andoloro and the research Unity DISCOVABESA on the first three volumes of the Atlas “La pittura medievale a Roma (312-1431). Corpus and Atlas” in nine volumes to be published soon (see M. Andaloro, La Pittura medievale a Roma. Corpus Atlante, vol. I, Milano, Jaca Book, 2006).
In the present project this model will be widely applied to a series of pictorial and mosaic contexts located in different monuments in Rome (see list model B Unity DISCOVABESA, Palermo (Palatine Chapel, King Ruggero’s Hall in the royal palace), Istanbul (Saint Sophia).
This model is available only in the paper version of the Atlas to be published soon. Therefore, it is essential to use a multimedia system, such as a portal Web, so that the interactive character of the different data of the whole amount of digital materials will be effectively displayed.
The design and creation of the portal Web ‘Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma’ is precisely the most ambitious objective of the whole project.
Places, monumental contexts and works of the research.
Studies connected with the whole project will take place in Italy and in some East Mediterranean countries. In Italy they will focus on Rome and some centers in Lazio, Campania, Sardinia and Sicily; while as concerns the East Mediterranean area, the attention will be drawn to Turkey, Cappadocia and Byzantine Caira regions in Istanbul; to Syria, in the monastery and church of Mar Musa in the Nebek province situated some seventy km south-east of Damascus; on the Mount Sinai, in the church of the St. Catherine Monastery.
Since 2006 the research proposed in Cappadocia is possible because the Ministry of Culture, Republic of Turkey has given permission to the Università degli Studi della Tuscia, headed by the director, who is also the project coordinator, for the study, research and preservation in the region. This is an extraordinary opportunity for carrying out research into a broad series of pictorial contexts, that due to their value and range of time (7th –late 13th centuries) constitute the most precious and impressive pictorial Byzantine collection of the whole Eastern area.
The project takes account of the recent studies carried out in previous PRIN (See Base di partenza), aiming at the improvement of the results and simultaneously it intends to develop new research lines to pursue. Firstly, we stress the importance of the portal Web; secondly, thanks to the competence of the Unity of the University of Tuscia, Department of Environment Sciences, the analysis through Micro-Raman spectrometry, in the analytic scientific plan for the study of pigments.
The new group increases the number of the Unities of the previous PRIN from four to five, enlarges the number and tasks of the laboratories involved in the research and strengthens – in an interdisciplinary sense- the role played in the project by the three Unities of the University of Tuscia and the work of the coordinator. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Our research project deals with Italian and Byzantine pictorial art (mosaics, wall-paintings, wooden paintings) and sculpture furniture in the Middle Ages (6th-14th centuries), and is intended to provide two different lines of investigation:
• The first regards the iconographic systems, the materials and the techniques;
• The second concerns the relationship between painting and sculpture furniture and their monumental context.

The project may not present a homogeneous starting point. Only the first research on the iconographic systems relies on a consolidated tradition of studies and on very vast bibliographical references. The following biblographical references are the essential ones and they show only some basic works about particular subjects. About a medieval painting in Rome: G.Matthiae, La pittura medievale a Roma, Roma 1965 and followin revisions of M.Andaloro for the first volume (1987) and F. Gandolfo for the second one (1988); about painting in Cappadocia: C.Jolivet-Levy, Les eglises byzantines de Cappadoce, le programme iconografique de l’abside et ses abords, Paris 1991; about the paintings in the church of monastery of Mar Musa (Siria): E. C.Dodd, The Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Habashi, a study in Medieval Painting in Syria, Toronto 2001; about the sulpture in Italy: the various “corpora” of sculpture early medieval, edited by Centro Italiano di studi sull’Alto Medio Evo and the Monuments sculptées de France.
Quite different is the present state of the materials and the executive techniques investigation, because the respective bibliography is narrowed to some individual cases, often connected to studies carried out in some restoration campaign.
The starting point of the two objectives mentioned above derives from the experimental work conducted during the research carried out in the earlier PRIN.
The previous researches have elaborated tables of
pigment, binder and mortar analysis not only of paintings (Dipartimento di Studi per la conoscenza e la valorizzazione dei beni storici e artistici) but also of sculptures (University of Cagliari);
- glass and stone analysis of mosaic tesserae (Dipartimento di Studi per la conoscenza e la valorizzazione dei beni storici e artistici);
- wood analysis for the support of the wooden paintings (Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Tecnologia, Scienze dell’Ambiente e delle Foreste);
- recognition of the marble or limestone used, etc. for the sculptures (Unità del Dipartimento studi per la conoscenza e la valorizzazione dei bene storici e artistici e Università di Cagliari).

Study results are gathered in a database called ‘Egeria. Mediterranean mosaics and wall paintings (6th-14th centuries). Images, materials and techniques’. Egeria is a relational database created in PRIN 2002 to archive and link the various types of documentation (photographs, graphics, surveys, analyses) applied to various kinds of objects (wall paintings, wooden paintings, mosaics, sculpture, architecture).
Crucially important to the whole project, “Egeria” database has been given, among the application products, an “excellent” grade by the Commissione d’Indirizzo per la Valutazione della Ricerca (CIVR).
In the previous projects other specific collection of records have been stored on the paintings on wood panel (Group of the Department of Technologies, Engineering, Science of the Environment and the Forestry) and on the Italian Midldle South sculpture (Unity of the Department of Archaeological and Historical Artistic Sciences).
As well as the central study, most of the scientific contributions coming from different projects’ coordinator and members of the research groups are also characterized by a strong interdisciplinary approach, which coniugates the historical artistic field with the analytical scientific one.
An example of this is the work conducted by Maria Andoloro: La parete palinsesto: 1900-2000, in Santa Maria Antiqua. 100 anni dopo lo scavo (British Institut of Rome, International Conference, Roma 5-6 May 2000 Rome 2004, pp. 97-111; Eadem, Kucuk Tavsan Adasi: 2002 Report in, “22 Arastirma Sonuclari Toplantisi”, Ankara 2004, pp. 211-224, Eadem, La pittura medievale a Roma. Corpus e Atlante 312-1431, Corpus vol. I, Atlante, vol. I to be published soon; R. Coroneo, Ricerche sulla scultura medievale in Sardegna, Cagliari 2004; M Romagnoli, M. Scarlatto, M. Nocetti, A. Rositi., For a Bank Data for Italian Panel Paintings. Wood characteristics and dendrochronological approach, Abstract Book in “Eurodentro”, Convegno Internazionale di Studi, 10-14 September 2003, Obergurgl, Tyrol; M. Romagnoli, V. Batoli, M. Scarlatto, P. Passalacqua, Perugino, Berto di Giovanni, Giannicola di Paolo: Dendrotipology of of Panel Paintings in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Abstract Book, in “Eurodendro” quoted in Convegno Internazionale di Studi, 28 September- 2 October 2005).
The choice to give central importance to the pigment analysis through Micro- Raman spectrometry, entrusted to a specific group ( Department of Environment Sciences, Laboratory of Physics), derived from the experience gained in the previous projects. The Department of Environment Sciences tasks integrate the pigments analytic scientific plan implemented by the Laboratorio di Diagnostica per la Conservazione e il Restauro, “M. Cordaro” originated within the researches carried out in the past in Rome and in some sites in Minor Asia (Küçük, Tavsan Adas, Eraklea Monte, Latmos, Kara Ada). Among the most recent studies about the application of this technique on the pigments we also would like to stress the contribution of De Santis A., “Photo-Polymerisation Effects on the Carbonyl C=O Bands of Composite Resins Measured by Micro-Raman Spectroscopy”, POLYMER Vol. 46 pp. 5001, (2005), ISSN: 0032-3861; De Santis A., Baldi M. “Photo-polymerisation of Composite Resins Measured by Micro-Raman Spectroscopy”, POLYMER, Vol. 45 pp. 3797-3804 (2004) ISSN: 0032-3861; The Third Aspect in: M. Andaloro, “Küçük Tavsan Adasi: 2003-2004 Reports” in, The 27th International Symposium of Excavations, Surveys and Archaeometry, May, 2005 Ankara- Turkey, AYRIBASIM, Ankara 2006 (to be published soon).
The research on the panel paintings and wooden painted ceilings supports starts from the well-known dendrochronological and xilological study implemented by the founder of the discipline, Prof. E. Corona. As concerns the wooden painted ceilings, that belong to an extraordinary class of objects, we would like to draw attention to a series of recent publications by Romagnoli M., Sarlatto M., Terranova F., Bizzarri E., Cesetti S., Wood identification in the ceiling of Cappella Palatina (12th century) in Palermo (Sicily, Italy), 2006 to be published soon on IAWA; Romagnoli M., Sarlatto M., Piovesan G., Di Filippo A., Terranova F., La Costruzione di una banca dati per le datazioni dendrocronologiche in Italia centro-meridionale: lo stato dell’arte in Sicilia, 2006 (to be published soon in CD-rom edition by Nardini Editore; Zoric, V., “Sulle tecniche costruttive islamiche in Sicilia: il soffitto della Cappella Palatina di Palermo”, in Scritti in Onore di Giovanni Maria D’Erme, Vol. III, Istituto Orientale Università Federico II di Napoli.
As concerns the second line of investigation “the relationship between monumental painting, sculpture furniture and their monumental context” the innovative aspect is brought by the interaction of distinct levels that without the help of computer science would have been impossible to relate. The mere juxtaposition of records and images inevitably produces a loss of information (for example the collection Mirabilia Italia, ed. S. Settis, Panini Editore, Modena), while digital systems of visual rendering allow not just the various data to be integrated, but also the information content to be increased. An example of this is the work conducted by Maria Andoloro and the group from the University of Viterbo in a study currently in progress which will lead to the publication of the work Pittura Medievale a Roma 312-1431. Corpus e Atlante, devised and directed by M. Andaloro (University of Viterbo) and S. Romano (University of Lausanne), Jaca Book, Milan.
The project of the first three volumes of the Atlas (fully developed by Maria Andaloro and the Group of Viterbo University) is deeply related to the experimental work conducted during the research carried out in the earlier PRIN: the publication of the first volume of the Atlas provides a valid example of the application of systems for the visualisation of pictorial art in their architectural context through the use of advanced methods of rendering. The visualisation system which lies at the basis of the Atlas is a complex interlinked structure aimed at gathering every useful visual element – photographs, digital reconstructions of buildings and spaces, graphical maps – and linking them through pathways laid out inside the monument. The Atlas, further, enables us to create the connections – even if they have been lost – between the wall paintings and their original location inside the buildings, presenting a series of visual pathways on the basis of plans of the buildings and 3-D models. The digital reconstructions offered satisfying and quite interesting results, providing a composite interaction of photographs, vector models and textures aiming eventually at the creation of rendering and videos.
The current work has risen interesting issues about the use and handling of images. Hence problems concerning brightness, chromatic conformity, mapping, or correspondence between photographs and hardly ever regular geometric surfaces need to be solved. The picture elements of photographic images, the optical stabilization, the proper photomosaic rendering, the perfect cohesion with the digital picture, the handling of different formats, the production of videos VRML at high resolution available on the Internet, and eventually a greater similarity between video and printed image, are only some topics that the previous research has progressively stimulated. As concerns the most ambitious goal of the project, the design of the portal Web “Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma”, it seems to be an innovative and original initiative in the range of Internet websites dedicated to Rome or to the Middle Ages. At present, none of the numerous websites dedicated to Rome (www.romecity.it; www.romaspqr.it ) lays special emphasis on medieval pictorial decoration; and of those few with art-historical content (www.medioevo.roma.it), not even one provides interactive links between images, plans and 3-D reconstructions of monuments and their surrounds – communicating exclusively through written texts. <<<