Search Results (11)

Bracara Augusta (Braga, Portugal), one of the most important cities of the NW Iberian Peninsula, was founded by the emperor Augustus approximately between the years 16/15 BC. Throughout the Roman period, it has undergone various monumentalisation programmes according to its status, the first one as a convent capital and a later one as a provincial capital. The investigation of the economic cost of construction in the ancient world allows us to understand Roman architecture and the society of builders, both from economic and social perspectives. In recent years, based on the works of Janet DeLaine and Paolo Barresi, despite the large number of variables and the difficulty of quantifying them, a calculation methodology has been developed to approximate the cost of architecture, based on the information contained in two main documents: the Diocletian’s Edict of Prices (301 AD) and the nineteenth-century architecture and engineering manuals summarised by Pegoretti. Our goal is to understand part of the construction process of Roman architecture in the NW Iberian Peninsula, considering the cost of raw materials, namely stone, and the labour required in its preparation and utilisation. In this study, we present a cost proposal associated with the monumentalisation of two of the city’s important buildings: the forum’s large buildings and the theatre. The construction of the city was made fundamentally using local stone, from different quarries, endowing it with notable buildings and requiring a strong contribution from the local elites. Full article

This article studies the recent evolution of five cases of small cities in the interior of Spain that several decades ago invested in culture as a strategy to maintain their populations and increase the quality of life of their inhabitants. These are case studies of differentiated characteristics in which the analysis of their evolution offers important keys for developing cultural policies in any small city in the world. The examples of Allariz, Almagro, Astorga, Puigcerdá and Trujillo allow for the corroboration of how betting on culture as a resilient and sustainable strategy generates positive results for their populations. Allariz, in the province of Ourense, is showing a cultural identity development that emerged as a movement to reject the pollution of the Arnoia River. In Almagro, in the La Mancha province of Ciudad Real, the recovery in 1955 of the only Corral de Comedias preserved since the 17th century allowed for the inauguration in 1979 of the first Almagro Classical Theatre Festival, and from then on, a whole series of restorations and new constructions related to theater and the performing arts, which turned a small town of less than 10,000 inhabitants into the national theater capital. Astorga is a small two-thousand-year-old city in the province of León, which is trying to recover as a living history museum to face the current reality of demographic and economic crises. Puigcerdá, in the province of Girona, the historic capital of Cerdanya, is another small town in which cultural management and production is much larger than it would be corresponding to its demographic size. Lastly, Trujillo, in the Extremadura province of Cáceres, a city of pre-Roman origin known in the 16th century as the birthplace of conquistadors in America such as Francisco Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana, is another small town of less than 10,000 inhabitants that is committed to creating and maintaining a rich cultural agenda with an important weight for the history and relationship between America and Spain and the recovery of the civil and religious heritage of this small monumental city. These are five enclaves, in summary, that have for years followed a clear strategy of betting on identity and culture to improve the well-being of their inhabitants and the local development of their economy, and which, as this research demonstrates, have made it possible to avoid the biggest problems of the impoverishment and abandonment of other nearby towns with similar characteristics. Full article

The present work deals with the acoustic analysis of the Roman theatre of Gubbio, located in Italy, which has already been the subject of architectural studies. Using four specific scenarios, acoustic simulations were carried out to highlight the contributions of different architectural elements to the acoustic response of this open-air theatre. The results were evaluated assuming that unamplified classical music and prose were the main functions of the space, as was the case in the past. The simulated results show that the values of the main acoustic parameters are closer to the optimal ranges borrowed from studies on enclosed theatres, since no criteria are available for Roman theatres. The comparison among different scenarios highlights the poor acoustic response of the existing conditions for a performing arts space. Some suggestions are presented regarding how the outcomes of this research study should be employed. Full article

The Roman theatre of Padua stood in the area now occupied by Prato della Valle, a huge elliptical-shaped square with a central green part (Isola Memmia) surrounded by a canal, built in the second half of the 18th century and part of the modern urban city center of Padua. Some still-preserved remains of the Roman theatre stand at the bottom of this canal. Recently, in 2017, emptying and cleaning the canal and excavating these remains, which had been known in the past, new geometrical and archaeological information has been collected. To date, however, there are no specific indications about additional preserved buried parts of the Roman theatre and its overall extent between the central and the outer part of Prato della Valle. Therefore, several electrical resistivity tomographies (ERT) and ground penetrating radar (GPR) sections were collected in 2017 to gather new information. The results of geophysical prospecting with recent archaeological evidence and historical documents, even the complexity of the urban environment, provide further details on the possible extent and location of additional buried remains of the Roman theatre, opening new archaeological considerations and issues related to the use of ERT and GPR in urban contexts. Full article

The relationship between the shape and social use of Greek and Roman theatres has always been overshadowed by the technical and acoustic analyses of these performance spaces. Relevant ruins illustrate the relationship between performance typology, acoustics, and construction development of ancient theatres, which were mainly determined by the requirements of artistic venues. The music in tragedies and comedies, the dances, and the public speeches performed in the same places helped to shape the constructions according to the requirements of the events. In addition to the need to satisfy social and political interactions, the functions of musical performances and public speeches in theatres were maintained across generations so that they organically coexisted in both Greek and Roman times. This paper presents new insights into the relationships between sound and architecture, focusing on the case study of the Greek–Roman theatre of Katane and its evolution through the centuries. Architectural features have been described in terms of the social functions of the theatre rather than as mere results of geometric rules. A brief comparison with the neighboring odeion of Katane and other Greek–Roman theatres has been made regarding destination use. Full article

Understanding the length and subdivisions of ancient length units is necessary for Archaeology, Architecture, and engineering, among other fields. These metrological units derive from anthropocentric concepts (fathom, cubit, foot, finger, etc.) and hence their metrological characteristics are variable and unknown for various ancient civilizations. The Roman length units are well determined, but the ancient Greek units are not. A rule sculpted in a metrological relief recently permitted the recognition of the Doric foot as having a length of 327 mm, but the broader use and divisions of this length unit remain unknown. In this article we present evidence of use of the Doric foot from the modeling of an ancient, atypical small theatre of the 4th–3rd century B.C., at Makyneia, on the western Greece mainland. It was found that this structure was designed using the Doric foot and its division in 24 (or even 12) digits. This result from a small provincial town indicates that the Doric foot was in broad use in architectural and engineering works of the ancient Greek World, and this result may be used to solve various problems of that era. Full article

This article focuses on Guercino’s Return of the Prodigal Son, commissioned in the name of Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi and on his marketing choices. This is a case study in terms of self-promotion tactics employed by an ambitious artist. My argument is that one finds in the painting a secondary and more sophisticated level of interpretation, which relates to the relationship between the painter and his patron. To the most traditional iconography of the scene, Guercino added musicians and spectators, thus positioning the entire composition in the theatre. One of the musicians is depicted in a way that casts him as a representative of the painter. The patron understood Guercino’s intentions and commissioned what became Guercino’s most important artworks. It was Guercino’s ability of shifting the attention of a given iconography and deliver current political meaning that is discernible in his Roman works commissioned by the same Cardinal Ludovisi who was elected Pope Gregory XV. Full article

During the Imperial Roman period, thousands of theatres were built. The theatres have three principal elements: the scene building (actor position), the orchestra and the cavea (spectator seating). The theatres were built without a roof, so they were open-air spaces. The theatres were abandoned afterward the barbarian invasions, and during the Middle Ages, homes were built inside the cavea. The theatres were rediscovered during the Renaissance period. Today, ancient theatres are the center of cultural events and are used for various kinds of shows. This work discussed the acoustics of the Roman theatre of Benevento, which was built during the Imperial Age. The theatre was destroyed after the barbaric invasion and it was rebuilt in the first half of the 1900s. The theatre was opened in 1957, and today it is the center of social and cultural activities. Acoustic measurements were carried out according to ISO 3382 standard, placing an omnidirectional sound source on the scene building and in the orchestra, with the measurement microphones along three directions in the cavea. The acoustic characteristics in various seating areas of the cavea were evaluated. Therefore, it possible to understand in which sectors of the theatre the acoustic characteristics are optimal for different types of theatrical performances. Full article

In Hispania (present-day Spain and Portugal), there are 25 structures documented of classical Roman open-air theatres, of which 10 are in the south, in the Roman Baetica (Andalusia). The Baetica embraced the progress of urbanisation in the time of the Roman emperor Augustus, where theatres, built in stone, were the foci of entertainment, performance, and propaganda of the empire. The Roman theatre in Malaga presents the archaeological remains of the main vestige of the Roman Malaca. It is located in the historical centre of the city, at the foot of the hill of the Muslim Alcazaba and was discovered in 1952. It is a medium-sized theatre whose design corresponds to a mixed construction that combines making use of the hillside for the terraces, in the manner of Greek theatres, with a major construction where rock is non-existent, thereby creating the necessary space for the stands. In this paper, the production process, adjustment, and validation of the 3D model of the theatre are analysed for the creation of a numerical predictive model of its sound field. Acoustic properties of the venue are examined and the effect of the Muslim Alcazaba and the hillside on the various acoustic descriptors is analysed. The results highlight the influence of this large stone surface mainly on the time decay parameters. Full article

The famous acoustics of ancient Greek theatres rely on a successful combination of appropriate location and architectural design. The theatres of the ancient world effectively combine two contradictory requirements: large audience capacity and excellent aural and visual comfort. Despite serious alterations resulting from either Roman modifications or accumulated damage, most of these theatres are still theatrically and acoustically functional. Acoustic research has proven that ancient theatres are applications of a successful combination of the basic parameters governing the acoustic design of open-air venues: elimination of external noise, harmonious arrangement of the audience around the performing space, geometric functions among the various parts of the theatre, reinforcement of the direct sound through positive sound reflections, and suppression of the delayed sound reflections or reverberation. Specifically, regarding the acoustic contribution of the stage building, it is important to clarify the consecutive modifications of the skene in the various types of theatres, given the fact that stage buildings were almost destroyed in most ancient Greek theatres. This paper attempts to demonstrate the positive role of the scenery in contemporary performances of ancient drama to improve the acoustic comfort using data from a sample of twenty (20) ancient theatres in Greece. Full article

This paper deals with the generation of accurate, dense and coloured 3D models of outdoor scenarios from scanners. This is a challenging research field in which several problems still remain unsolved. In particular, the process of 3D model creation in outdoor scenes may be inefficient if the scene is digitalized under unsuitable technical (specific scanner on-board camera) and environmental (rain, dampness, changing illumination) conditions. We address our research towards the integration of images and range data to produce photorealistic models. Our proposal is based on decoupling the colour integration and geometry reconstruction stages, making them independent and controlled processes. This issue is approached from two different viewpoints. On the one hand, given a complete model (geometry plus texture), we propose a method to modify the original texture provided by the scanner on-board camera with the colour information extracted from external images taken at given moments and under specific environmental conditions. On the other hand, we propose an algorithm to directly assign external images onto the complete geometric model, thus avoiding tedious on-line calibration processes. We present the work conducted on two large Roman archaeological sites dating from the first century A.D., namely, the Theatre of Segobriga and the Fori Porticus of Emerita Augusta, both in Spain. The results obtained demonstrate that our approach could be useful in the digitalization and 3D modelling fields. Full article