Fragmented objects/Fragmented data. Quantitative methods and digital approaches in the project Mapping Sacred Spaces: Forms, Functions, and Aesthetics in Medieval Southern Italy

Ruggero Longo, Elisabetta Scirocco

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2025, 36.2, 85-102; doi: 10.19282/ac.36.2.2025.08

Abstract

According to a traditional distinction, quantitative and qualitative research approaches are the exclusive domain of the hard sciences, the former, and the humanities, the latter. Taking as its starting point E. Panofsky’s reflections on the disciplinary status of Art History in relation to its method of investigation (1940), this paper aims to demonstrate the anachronism of the hierarchy between disciplines based on the adoption of quantitative or qualitative methods, in favour of a more transversal scientific methodology. Looking at Art History in particular, it is undeniable that the digital revolution has enabled and strongly stimulated quantitative approaches and at the same time fostered transdisciplinary collaborations between different scientific areas. Based on these premises, the article presents the research methodologies and some results of the project Mapping Sacred Spaces: Forms, Functions, and Aesthetics in Medieval Southern Italy, in which the management of a large amount of fragmentary data is addressed. These are either fragmented artistic artefacts scattered over a wide geography, to be analysed at different topographical scales, or a single case study to which a large number of sources and research materials are linked, requiring a systematic and simultaneous management of data. In particular, a preview of the digital archive of the project will be offered, while the preliminary reconstructive 3D model (realised with HBIM technology) of the choir screens and ambo of the Cathedral of Monreale (c. 1180) will be presented for the first time.

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