Survey, documentary research and stratigraphic analyses of the gothic church of S. Eligio al Mercato in Naples

Abstract

Digital techniques of survey are an essential tool in the field of the architectural restoration, for investigation of the stratigraphy of the structures, aiming at their chronological collocation in the right historical period. Their spread has been driven mainly by the reduction of the time needed for the survey step, the better reliability of the representation of the historicized artifacts, whose constituents do not have serial characteristics, and by the development of three-dimensional models, queried, which significantly reduce the level of discretization of the survey.
The study proposed in this paper is part of a larger research whose main aim is the construction and testing of a methodological research process that allows easy reading of the medieval buildings in Naples, particularly late medieval religious architecture in Naples. This procedure utilizes the drawing, the survey and the contribution from archival data in order to complete the work with historical information. In particular, the survey, conducted scientifically, allowed to bring out information (alignments, even the smallest variations, differences in wall thickness, anomalies and inaccuracies existing or fake, relations between the various parts of the building) otherwise not deductible.
We summarize here some of the findings related to the interesting case-study of the proto-Angevin church of S. Eligio al mercato, the first religious construction in Naples after the Angevin conquest of the kingdom. Once the artifact was surveyed with laser scanner, the data obtained were used as a database for the extrapolation of significant graphic restitution such as the materical survey of the buildings and the statistic elaboration of metrological data. In the end , these data were compared with the information that emerged from the documentary research, conducted at the Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli and the Current Archive of the Superintendent of Architectural Heritage of Naples.
In this way it was possible to investigate the stratigraphic complexity of the artifact, confirming, once again, that the layers are not occasional and rare circumstances but instead a reality itself in the architecture and that the analysis of material consistency is essential for their identification and interpretation.
The research has led to significant acquisitions related to to historiographical construction phases (modernization, adaptation, restoration) of the church, with significant advances in knowledge.