From a survey the current state to a hypothesis of the former state. A digital trip in augmented reality into the ‘deleted history’ of the Capo d’Uomo Tower on Mount Argentario

Abstract

[EN] The Capo d'Uomo Tower in Monte Argentario is one of the case studies that are the subject of an ongoing university research project aimed at investigating and elucidating the Cultural Heritage of the State of Presidî. Information and Communication Technologies, including latest digital reality management techniques, are of particular interest for such research. In fact, one of the aims of the study is to broaden the knowledge of the population and the visitors, who will have to be drawn to attention, involved, and oriented along a flow of scientific information which is conventionally regarded as possible to dedicate only to specialists. Numerous fortified structures for sighting, communication, and defence remain from the State of the Presidî, a former Spanish military enclave on the Tuscan coast. At present, the status of the Capo d'Uomo Tower, erected between the 15th and 16th centuries under rule of the Republic of Siena and renovated during the Spanish regency, appears critical. Despite its long period of existence, no graphic documentation about it can be found today. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, with annexation of the Presidî to the Kingdom of Etruria, the French drafted several surveys of many of the remaining fortalices, some of which were similar to the tower. The working group has recently documented and published the actual condition of the tower, processing TLS and photogrammetric acquisitions in an integrated digital survey. This paper pursues an extension of the above-mentioned research – also for popularization – and digital integration of the status of the tower with reconstructions of its missing elements, which will be the result of careful studies on the previous surveys of typologically similar coeval buildings.