Integrating Diagnostic Tools in the Ariosto Room

At the Noble floor of the Chigi Palace in Ariccia, the left wing of the building hosts the Ariosto Room (Sala dell’Ariosto), characterised by the decorative cycle painted by Giuseppe Cades in 1788 with scenes inspired to the famous Ludovico Ariosto’s poem the Raging Roland (Orlando Furioso). In addition, two large monochrome paintings on opposite walls by the same author enrich the room, representing The Antique Greece (Graecia Vetus) and The New Italy (Italia Nova). The Ariosto Room and its decorative paintings are the object of the present investigation. In particular, the Graecia Vetus and its supporting wall was studied integrating image-based data from photogrammetric survey and acoustic imaging diagnostics, for investigating the masonry structure beneath the painting surface. Integrating complementary information from many available technologies represents a tool of primary importance, since the cultural assets and the historical buildings where they are placed often show a complexity requiring the development of appropriate data fusion procedures. The authors wish to propose a suitable approach for treating multi-source data from image-based methodologies, where heterogeneous datasets gather in a multi-layer map, each layer representing a type of defects or anomalies, in order to provide a set of simple and intelligible information to the end users.