Resumen de Le rocce raccontano: la cripta, le prigioni e i sotterranei del castellodi Otranto. Dal rilievo al modello di fruizione virtuale
Giovanna Muscatello, Carmine Mitello
The Castle of Otranto (Puglia, Italy), located south of the citadel, close to the port area, hides underground environments of great charm, mysterious places where the stories of men, of different rank and social class are intertwined, narrated on the rocky walls from which numerous completely unpublished graffiti and bas-reliefs appear; a varied story, made up of symbols and artistic manifestations, still mysterious, but with numerous ideas, which allows us to perceive the human presences who lived in the most archaic places of the manor, probably from the Middle Ages up to the whole of the seventeenth century. The completion of the study of the basement has given us the opportunity to understand the evolution of the castle structure since its construction. Furthermore, the exceptional discovery of the crypt, below the parade ground, belonging to the rock settlement that extended on this side of the city before the construction of the manor, puts the Idruntino landing place in a new light, seen not only as a port on the Adriatic for trade routes in the Mediterranean but also as a place of worship included in the pilgrimage routes, especially in the Middle Ages. The hundreds of significant religious symbols scratched into the rocks suggest the need for the faithful first and then for the prisoners to impress a sign of their devotion, an imprint of their passage, an expression of their suffering, an ex voto. The problems related to the location, inaccessibility and instability of these underground portions made it necessary to acquire and store all the metric information for the current state, using digital data for the study and management of the assets detected. Image-based 3D modelling, digital graffiti mapping, the aid of 3D laser scanner technology and virtual reality have made places “accessible” that otherwise could not be enjoyed except through an immersive story and the creation of a model of virtual use.
