From Temple to Church. The Evolution of San Lorenzo in Miranda Through Machine Learning

The paper addresses the challenges related to the application of machine learning solutions to support historical and architectural critical interpretation. The case study here reported is the complex of San Lorenzo in Miranda located in the Roman Forum along the Via Sacra. The structure, born as a temple and later transformed into a church, is a multi-layered architectural palimpsest where each construction phase, at least since Roman times, has inevitably influenced the subsequent modifications. The building’s rebirth upon itself by integrating and modifying its older portions is its main characteristic, imparting a specific complexity and interest. The first phase of the research focused on bibliographic study and 3D digital survey which both contributed to identifying the multiple construction phases of the building. In particular, the digital survey was implemented through two survey campaigns. The first one involved a massive 3D laser scanner and a UAV photogrammetric capturing while the second one integrated a topographic survey to georeference the captured data. The second phase was related to data interpretation, focusing on research questions related to an hypothetical reconstruction of the cella’s wall original covering layer. This question was addressed by leveraging machine learning algorithms used to automatically identify the covering traces.