Digital artefacts for the knowledge and documentation of the fortifiedheritage. The Castle of Torres Vedras in Portugal

• Fabiana Guerriero ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Aversa, Italy
• Localización: FORTMED2023. Defensive architecture of the mediterranean : vol. XIII, XIV, XV / Marco Giorgio Bevilacqua (dir. congr.), Denise Ulivieri (aut.), 2023, ISBN 978-84-1396-129-3, págs. 1081-1088
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The research presents the results of the study conducted on the Castle of Torres Vedras, located in the Portuguese city of the same name in the district of Lisbon, whose architectural palimpsest is characterised by an initial watchtower (built by the Turduli Veteres to take advantage of the site’s excellent natural defences) fortified by the Romans and subsequently conquered and reinforced by the Moors until 1147, when it came under Christian rule. All that remains of the former medieval castle are the Romanesque remains of the Church of Our Lady and the walls that follow a pseudo-ovate layout. In accordance with the provisions dictated by the most recent plans for the management and valorisation of cultural heritage, which have focused attention on the importance of the “digitisation” of cultural heritage and the various forms of archiving and dissemination of information associated with it, the study proposed here has as its objective the knowledge, documentation and digitisation of the asset under investigation, aimed at structuring both a graphic database and an archive of three-dimensional models that can subsequently be implemented with specific thematic elements. To this end, methodological recourse was made to the UAV survey. Specifically, the four-wheeled drone used allowed observation from new viewpoints and the collection of images, without any contact with the object, capable of effectively describing the space and morphology of the fortified architecture. The subsequent photogrammetric processing of the data (by means of specific software for obtaining dense point clouds and textured 3D meshes) made it possible to observe and analyse all the peculiarities of the architectural artefact also through the subsequent thematisation of multi-scalar two-dimensional data. The final aim of the operation is, as of today, the documentation of the asset, which, after the extensive damage caused to the castle by the catastrophic earthquake of 1755, is scarcely present.