The fresco in the inner loggia of palazzo Petrucci at Carinola: survey of a lost work of art

In violent times, art is often damaged or destroyed and the memory, however detailed, of what is lost is never anyone’s truth: neither of the person describing the work, nor of those who are described, because memory is the unconscious drawing of the work of art. The research in Palazzo Petrucci at Carinola, a medieval building belonging to an urban reality that is among the most original as regards its Catalan architecture, was undertaken with the intention of attempting to recover the primigenial image of the scenography of its court, now lost due to the neglect and violence of man, and to halt the memory of the unconscious. This paper describes a methodology aimed at the virtual recovery of the wall paintings that originally decorated the walls of the palace’s inner loggia, a process of knowledge and documentation carried out through metric and photogrammetric survey using software of the latest generation, in which the modules were developed for the reconstruction of the perspective view. The documentation produced describes the wall painting in its original position. These are evocative photographs, which we believe can contribute to strengthening the collective memory and sense of identity of this community, and from which, adopting the appropriate precautions, one can read a chapter of the medieval history of the Province of Terra di Lavoro.