Modelling the experience: virtual restoration of the Benedictine monastery of Saints Ilario and Benedetto

Abstract

In January 1885 Nicolò Barozzi delivered the Prefecture of Venice the final report regarding the archaeological excavations that took place in the hamlet of Dogaletto di Mira, on the mainland, where from the 9th to the 15th century the Benedictine monastery of Saints Ilario and Benedetto arose, prospered, fell and eventually disappeared. The lived experience of the wealthy and great coenobium, intimately entwined with the politics of the first realtini dukes – the Partecipazi –, has intrigued generations of scholars due to its economic, political, social, institutional, and identity roles as the duchy's longa manus on the dry land. Exploiting the methodologies of processual and post-processual archaeology, alongside 2D and 3D modelling solutions ­– here employed as research tools from the very beginning of the process and not just as solutions used to show the final product –, the following research project approaches the monastery as a social living subject and a holistic environment trying on one hand to present its cultural experience and on the other hand to provide a few FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable – restoration models of the monastic structures, precisely the ecclesiastic ones, and some storytelling prototypes for the broader public, both with the aim of showing, without reducing, the complexity of the topic.