Drawing the walls of time and space: the Fontana dei Ciechi at Bonefro

This study, focused on one of the historic fountains in the village of Bonefro, grew out of the desire to give new impulse to small cultural sites in Molise and is aimed, as suggested by the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) - National Plan for Recovery and Resilience, at enhancing the architectural heritage of the rural landscape, as well as the recovery and development of a new post-pandemic tourism. The study is based on archive documents and published material available in the Molise’s cultural centres, as well as on the information published in the General Catalogue of Cultural Heritage. This research also involved an architectural survey using the ‘Structure From Motion’ method, which uses a dataset of ground and aerial images that are georeferenced and scale-adjusted in post-processing using topographical points. Additionally, the presence of an earlier architectural survey, made using traditional methods, allowed us to compare the results obtained in the past with those we attained using advanced survey techniques. The processes of discretizing and measuring, and of graphic synthesis have therefore produced an integral vision of the historical-architectural knowledge of the fountain, conveyed with traditional line drawings and three-dimensional models created through the processing of photographic images and aerial videos, which clearly show it’s identifying characteristics, archetypal features and geometrical matrixes become evident.