THE 1735 PORTA FELICE APPARATUS BETWEEN HISTORY AND DIGITAL REPRESENTATION: A CULTURAL HERITAGE AS A PLACE OF LIFE AND EXPERIENCE

In 1735, on the entry of Charles III of Bourbon into Sicily, the Palermitan Senate gave arrangements for the related festivities to be prepared. The preferred route was via Toledo (present-day via Vittorio Emanuele), with the terminations of Porta Nuova and Porta Felice. It is on this last architectural work that the present contribution aims to deepen the subject, through a comparison of historical documents and digital representation techniques. The possibilities offered today by digital technologies have opened new perspectives in the field of virtual reconstruction, including the great majority of historic buildings that have disappeared, or been transformed over time, of which the only historical memory would remain entrusted to a few textual and/or iconographic testimonies. Nicolò Palma, author of the apparatus, of which the only testimony remains the engraving by G. Vasi (fig.1- a), joined“ i due lati con un arco finto, e vi s’aggiunse un terz’ordine composto, che terminava in una cupola, e riduceasi alla forma d’un magnifico arco di trionfo” (La Placa, 1736), a clear reference to the famous architect Andrea Pozzo (fig.1-b). The present contribution therefore aims to intensify the study of the ephemeral apparatus represented as an extraordinary example of cultural heritage as a concept of “place of life” and “place of experience” allowing us to know and appreciate the built environment, both material and immaterial. The available iconographic material, for reconstructive purposes does not constitute metrically reliable data because of the deformations evident in the perspective model represented in the engraving. The analysis needs, therefore, a survey phase of the existing to support the restitution of the iconographic material. The digital survey of Porta Felice was conducted by laser scanner and provided a point cloud useful for the extrapolation of both the volume of the artifact and the correct layouts. After the creation of a relief model, the perspective scheme (Agnello, 2022) related to the carving will be analyzed to find a correlation between historical iconography and the relief model (fig.1-c). The reconstructive process will, therefore, be developed in a 3D environment to obtain a virtual simulacrum of the architectural object. The reconstructive process will be the result of the comparison between historical documents and digital relief of the existing (fig.1-d).