This paper presents a digital heritage strategy aimed at documenting, enhancing, and disseminating the religious cultural heritage of the Naples metropolitan area through a web-based geographic platform and immersive virtual tours. The research develops an open and updateable GIS database that maps churches and religious buildings using typological, morphological, historical, and descriptive data, later published as an interactive WebGIS environment. As a detailed case study, the Church of San Giacomo Apostolo Maggiore in Casalnuovo di Napoli was surveyed through integrated reality-based technologies, including terrestrial laser scanning, UAV photogrammetry, and close-range photogrammetry for decorative details. These datasets were merged into complete three-dimensional models and used to generate drawings, documentation, and equirectangular scenes for a browser-based virtual tour built with Marzipano. The tour includes navigable panoramic environments, hotspots, technical drawings, and embedded 3D altar models. The study demonstrates how lightweight digital tools can improve remote and on-site accessibility, strengthen public awareness, and create a scalable model for the valorization of hidden religious heritage.
Virtual Canova: a Digital Exhibition Across MANN and Hermitage Museums
The paper presents the results of a scientific collaboration between the Interdepartmental Research Center Urban/Eco of the University of Naples Federico II and the MANN (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, National Archaeological Museum of Naples).The research activity was aimed to the digitisation, design, and development of an AR/VR-powered narrative experience regarding Antonio Canova’s statuary that is currently exhibited at the MANN, loaned by the Hermitage in St. Petersburg: Cupid, Hebe, Dancer, Cupid and Psyche, the Genius of Death and The Three Graces.The project is motivated by the will to realize an active example of a digital museum, where cultural and formative experiences related to the fruition of architectural and artistic artifacts can be relived over time, even when manufacts are not physically and/or temporally located in the space where the experience takes place.