Digital reconstruction preserves Italian basilica’s art
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Haltadefinizione, an Italian company, created a digital reconstruction of the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi in central Italy, allowing online visitors to explore the historic church and its artwork.
The new platform, Preserving Assisi, provides 360-degree views of both the Upper and Lower basilicas, built in the 13th century, and the exterior grounds. Users can examine individual frescoes and pictorial cycles up close, including Giotto’s Homage of a Simple Man and Pietro Lorenzetti’s Crucifixion.
Haltadefinizione developed the platform using 27,000 high-definition images captured over the past two years, resulting in images with up to eight billion pixels each. The company intends for the digital reconstruction to serve as a permanent record of the basilica’s current condition, enabling researchers to track changes over time. This project builds on previous photographic campaigns that proved essential to restoration efforts after earthquakes damaged the basilica in 1997, including artwork by Giotto and Cimabue.
Digitisation will continue in the coming months, with new content added to the platform as it becomes available.
