Strategies and methods in documenting and narrating tangible cultural heritage. The case study of S. Lorenzo in Miranda (Rome)

Many cultural heritage assets and contexts are still not adequately documented and known. This increases the risk that this potential wealth of knowledge will be lost forever due to the threats of urban sprawl and the natural and anthropogenic erosion to which it is exposed. Furthermore, it prevents adequate cultural communication. These heritage contexts must therefore be transformed into documents and systems of knowledge through epistemological and hermeneutic procedures, so that they can be turned into images and narratives that illustrate the flow of large and small stories. These premises are the basis of the PNRR Project CHANGES - Spoke 8. The main objectives of the Project are the integration of technologies and sciences for Tangible Cultural Heritage (TCH); the creation and development of digital infrastructures for TCH inventories/catalogues capable of supporting different knowledge pathways and maximising accessibility. Within this framework, a relevant topic concerns strategies and methods for documenting and analyzing built spaces and reconstructing parts of ancient landscapes. One of the main challenges of the Project is to verify how different data sources can coexist in the same 3D digital environment. Due to this, Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) provides a wide range of tools in terms of data representation and information extraction. The possibility of relating data sources to visible structure and reconstruction hypothesis will be illustrated through a specific case study: the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda along the Via Sacra route, near the Roman Forum. Originating as a temple dedicated to the emperors Antoninus and Faustina, and later becoming a church, this context is particularly significant for the overlapping and diachronic relationship between open spaces and built contexts within a place of special historical and architectural significance.