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1. Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212
Available online at
ScienceDirect
www.sciencedirect.com
Original article
GIS and Geomatics for archive documentation of an architectural
project: The case of the big Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II
Gallery of Milan, by Giuseppe Mengoni (1877)
Gabriele Bitellia
, Giorgia Gattaa,∗
, Anna-Maria Guccinib
, Alberto Zaffagninia
a
DICAM (Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering) - University of Bologna, viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
b
Archivio-Museo Giuseppe Mengoni, piazza Roma 22, Fontanelice (BO), Italy
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 13 March 2018
Accepted 3 January 2019
Available online 25 January 2019
Keywords:
GIS
Photogrammetry
Historical archive
Catalogue records
Giuseppe Mengoni
Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II
Gallery
a b s t r a c t
Today, Geomatics science can provide modern techniques of acquisition, visualization, measurement
and data management, useful for preservation, documentation and analysis of Cultural Heritage, in all its
variety. Very interesting is the case for which both the project documentation of an object and the object
itself are Cultural Heritage. A perfect example is the big Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery
of Milan (Italy), by Giuseppe Mengoni (1877), whose project documents are today kept at the “Museum-
Archive Giuseppe Mengoni” of Fontanelice (province of Bologna). Exploiting this case, in the present study
it was tested the utilization of geomatic techniques – photogrammetry and GIS (Geographic Information
System) technology in particular – for archive documentation, developing an innovative tool able to
allow intuitive and immediate searches among the archive documents (once made measurable) and the
catalogue records, and let an innovative reading of the big Arc, in each step of its project development.
© 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
1. Research aim
The present study aims to develop an innovative method – based
on techniques from Geomatics – for archive documentation of an
architectural project (in particular, the big Arc of entrance to the
Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery of Milan), for a dual purpose: on the
one hand to provide a tool for intuitive and immediate archive
searches and digital consultation (in a metric way) among the doc-
uments preserved in the “Museum-Archive Giuseppe Mengoni”; on
the other, to allow an innovative reading and a complete compre-
hension of the architectural project, in each step of its development.
The adopted method appears original for an archive, primarily
for some reasons:
• the link between the development of a historical architectural
project and its archival sources is approached with a spatio-
temporal approach thanks to the geomatic methods;
• the archival documents, acquired by means of photogrammetry
technique, are accessible in a metric way and they are measur-
able, that is unusual for archive or museum collections;
∗ Corresponding author at: DICAM Department, viale Risorgimento 2, 40136
Bologna, Italy.
E-mail address: giorgia.gatta@unibo.it (G. Gatta).
• the developed system, structured according the real object the
documents describe and the archival references, allows intuitive
but thorough archival searches and an innovative reading of the
architectural object (the Big Arc).
2. Introduction
Architectural Heritage – places, monuments, historical build-
ings – represents a collective memory of the past, a symbol for
society and an attraction for tourists. For this reason, a proper
documentation, valorisation and preservation is really necessary.
Thanks to new technologies, in the last years we have completely
revised the modalities of knowledge of Architectural Heritage, and
in some cases even retold architectural history. In fact, new tech-
nologies allow a better knowledge and management of the heritage,
information integration, generation of new kind of data, immediate
display and more effective interactions, and finally communication
towards a wider audience [1,2].
2.1. The contribution of Geomatics
Concerning preservation, documentation and analysis of Cul-
tural Heritage in general, modern techniques coming from
Geomatics (the modern science of surveying by means of digital
techniques)allowacquisition,visualization,measurementanddata
management through innovative methods [3–9]. Geomatics can be
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2019.01.002
1296-2074/© 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

2. G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212 205
Fig. 1. Left: an image of Giuseppe Mengoni (Verbania, private collection). Right: an image of the consultation room of the “Museum-Archive Giuseppe Mengoni” of Fontanelice.
(source: http://www.archiviogiuseppemengoni.it).
applied to Cultural Heritage in many different ways and at very
different scales, from little objects and artefacts to buildings and
archaeological sites.
In the specific case of an architectural object of historical
importance, both the project documentation of the object and the
object itself are Cultural Heritage [10]. Geomatics helps in metric
documentation, preservation and management of both the parts,
allowing a better knowledge of Architectural Heritage in all its
entirety, from the project phase to the realization one. Suitable
geomatic techniques in this context can be: classical photogram-
metry or computer vision approaches like SfM (Structure from
Motion), together with laser scanning, for the acquisition step, GIS
(Geographic Information System) and BIM (Building Information
Modeling) for the subsequent steps (visualization, measurements
and data management). This last two, with different points of view,
allow to maintain the biunivocal correspondence between graphi-
cal elements and related textual alphanumeric contents, on a base
constituted by the effective 2D or 3D model of the object [11–14].
2.2. Access to archive maps and documents
The main problem concerning the project documentation of
Architectural Heritage (archive maps and documents in general)
is the difficulty in finding the exact location in which data are
preserved or anyway in having access to them. It is true that nowa-
days more and more institutions make their documentary heritage
available online, but not all the institutions do it, or in any case it
is inevitably done in heterogeneous ways (in terms of interfaces,
standards and protocols) among different institutions. This trans-
lates into difficulty for users in finding the location of geospatial
and cultural heritage data, with the result of limitation to the geo-
graphical open data integration. Definition of common standards
suitable for all geo-information systems is practically impossible;
notwithstanding this, some attempts for semantic operability were
done in recent years, first of all the Dublin Core, developed by the
DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative). This is one of the most
widespread metadata standards at international level, for its easy
to use and its considerable flexibility, in Italy recognized by the
law as a standard of archival metadata for the conservation of dig-
ital documents. Other examples of common standards are the OGC
(Open Geospatial Consortium) standards for geospatial data or the
CIDOC (International Committee for Documentation of the Inter-
national Council of Museums) CRM (Conceptual Reference Model)
for cultural heritage documentation [15]. These systems aim at the
development of a shared core data structure; another solution can
be a brokering approach, such as the creation of virtual nodes of
interconnection between client and server components, using Vir-
tual Hub DAB (discovery Access and Brokering service) based on
Open Data Standards, in order to have a single point of access for
the users and facilitate their searches [16,17].
3. Study subject
A very interesting example of Architectural Heritage is the big
Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery of Milan (Italy),
designed by Giuseppe Mengoni and inaugurated at the beginning
of 1878. Notwithstanding the Arc is placed in Milan, the almost
totality of the project documentation is today kept at the “Museum-
Archive Giuseppe Mengoni” of the town of Fontanelice (province
of Bologna), birthplace of Mengoni.
3.1. Giuseppe Mengoni and the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery of
Milan
Today, the Engineer-Architect Giuseppe Mengoni (Fig. 1) is a
personage little known by name but very much for his artworks
[18,19]. He was born in 1829 in Fontanelice. In 1851, he took a
degree in Philosophy, Physics and Mathematics in Bologna, where
also attended the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1856 he qualified as an
Engineer and in the following years he made trips through Europe
[20]. He opened a studio in the centre of Bologna, at his residence,
and afterwards one in Milan.
In 1863, Mengoni won a competition for the arrangement of
the Duomo square in Milan, therefore in 1865–1867 the Vittorio
Emanuele II Gallery was built under his direction. The Gallery, made
on the base of the Parisienne passages, but with an explosion of
the dimensions in order to make monumental the passage itself,
took on a role of primary importance in the global architectural
panorama, as it was one of the most famous examples of architec-
ture in iron, thanks to its beautiful roof in iron and glass. Not by
chance, in the construction of the Gallery as well as in all his hand-
iwork, Mengoni joined traditional to modern materials, as well as
made new use of the materials themselves, e.g. the processing of
chalk as faux marble [21].
The Gallery is composed by two orthogonally crossed arms, the
biggest of which – connecting Piazza della Scala to Piazza Duomo –
is 196 m in length and the other one is 105 m; the width is 14.5 m for
both. The intersection of the arms is a place named “octagon”, due
to the shape deriving from the cut of the four corners where the two
arms cross perpendicularly. The octagon is surmounted by a dome
and it is decorated with four magnificent mosaics. The interior of

3. 206 G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212
Fig. 2. A current image of the big Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery of Milan (source: http://www.estia.it/).
the Gallery is composed by three floors and one mezzanine, with
the ground floor today occupied by about 100 prestigious shops.
The grand entrance Arc to the Gallery, facing Piazza Duomo, was
realized 10 years later. The works finished at the end of 1877, but
the day before the inauguration Mengoni died falling from a scaf-
fold; the inauguration was postponed to the following year. The
size of the Arc is impressive, properly designed to resemble a real
triumphal arc: 27.80 m in height to the keystone, 30.50 m in height
to the top of the attic, 9.77 m in the inner width (Fig. 2). The Arc is
divided in three vertical parts, whose the central one is composed
by a single fornix, whereas the lateral ones are divided in two levels
and are symmetrical in respect to the central part. Within the Arch,
on the support columns, are two epigraphs dedicated to Giuseppe
Mengoni. In 2014–2015 the Gallery and the Arc were subject of a
major restoration [22–26].
3.2. The “Museum-Archive Giuseppe Mengoni”
The “Museum-Archive Giuseppe Mengoni”, case almost unique
in the kind, preserves very big assets signed by the Architect-
Engineer: over 1700 project documents (drawings, plans, sections,
etc.) by Mengoni, mostly inherent the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery
of Milan and its big entrance Arc (Fig. 1). The Archive derives from
the donation made in 1961 by one of the last heirs of Mengoni, but
in the 90’s it has been subject of a consistent rearrangement. (Fig. 3)
Each document is numbered according to the original numer-
ation given by the studio of Mengoni, and, during the last
rearrangement, it has been provided by a catalogue record, where
information on the document and the represented object are
reported (e.g. identification number, original number, description
of the represented object, date, scale, document size, state of
preservation of the document) [27–32]. The structure of the cat-
alogue records was specifically developed for the Mengoni archive,
borrowing from different categories of metadata, as the current
standards for metadata at that time did not exist.
The documents have very different size, the area ranging from
10 dm2 to over 10 m2. The big sized documents (the most part
composed by particulars in 1:1 scale) are folded several times
on themselves, with consequent difficulties in consultation by the
users of the Archive. The documents have different states of con-
Fig. 3. The acquisition phase of the documents at the Mengoni Archive.
servation; unfortunately, some of them suffer from serious wear
and tear and would be in need of restoration.
The present study originated from the need for the director of
the Archive to transform into digital an idea just developed dur-
ing the last activity of rearrangement: a computer based system
for an intuitive visual search among the huge quantity of graphical
and textual documents inherent the big Arc. The availability of a
visual system in digital can provide immediate search and inter-
active consultation of the documents, useful for the users of the
Archive as well as the Archive itself, opening new possibilities to
study the project under different aspects. Having all the data stored
in a database can permit for example to realize queries related to
the temporal development of the project, allowing to reconstruct
the succession of the events and subsequent choices made by the
architect at the construction site.
To the aim of the study, a first part of the documents kept at
the Mengoni Archive was digitized, in order to be systematized
into a GIS, proving to be an innovative means of preservation and
consultation of Cultural Heritage (see section 4.3).
4. Methods
Due to the necessity for the “Museum-Archive Giuseppe
Mengoni”, on the one hand, to digitize its documents (this way pre-

4. G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212 207
Fig. 4. Rectified image of a document relative to the Arc and measurement of a distance (see the blue line) in a GIS environment.
serving them from further wear and tear and providing search and
consultation in digital), and, on the other, to provide researchers
with a tool for a complete study and comprehension of the big
Arc (from the project to the realization), an innovative method for
archive documentation was tested. Up to now, the test has been
performed on the big Arc of entrance to the Vittorio Emanuele II
Gallery of Milan, an object smaller than the Gallery – even though
complex anyway – and therefore more suitable for the aim.
The method consists of three steps:
• digital acquisition of the historical graphical documents of the
Mengoni project;
• transcription in a database of the relative catalogue records;
• creation of a GIS to visualize and systematize all these data.
In this first test only the documents that best represent the Arc
have been considered: they are capable in the complex to give an
exhaustive idea of the architectural object and the various concep-
tual and technical steps in the realization of the structure.
4.1. Digitization of the archive documents
A rigorous digitization of the selected historical documents
– characterized by very different size, as above explained – was
realized by means of digital photogrammetry, as a non-contact sur-
veying technique. Undoubtedly, with a similar geometric precision,
the use of high-resolution large format scanners is more fast and
practical in respect to digital photogrammetry. Notwithstanding
this, the reason of the choice of on-site acquisition by means of pho-
togrammetry was that some documents are in poor condition (in
some cases very bad), so that transportation in a different place and
digitization with a contact technique could be dangerous for the
documents themselves. Moreover, some documents are deformed,
therefore, from a geometrical point of view, 3D digitization is the
most appropriate choice for them. Finally, high costs to cover logis-
tical problems and insurance in the case of transportation outside
the Museum have to be considered.
For the aim of the present study, the digitization of the flat doc-
uments was carried out without stereoscopic cover; in some cases,
when the documents were so deformed that they cannot be consid-
ered flat objects, stereoscopic acquisitions have become necessary.
The acquisitions were made in the Archive, by means of a digital
full-frame DSLR camera (Canon EOS 6D) mounted on an autopole,
pressed horizontally between two walls (Fig. 4). This way it was
possible to take pseudo-nadiral photos in respect to the documents
(with a simplification of the acquisition geometry in the case of
flat documents), followed by a photogrammetric process. Coded
targets were placed all around each document and their position
determined in a local plane reference system to support the pho-
togrammetric orientation. A lightning system was used in order to
uniformly give light to the scene and the documents, and a photo
with a Color Checker was taken for each document to guarantee
the chromatic fidelity of the pictures, acquired in raw format. For
the acquisitions, focal length and distance between the camera and
the document were chosen in order to have an adequate size of the
pixel on the object (between 0.1 and 0.2 mm).
The images, once radiometrically corrected, were oriented in
the coordinate system of the target network (calculated with a
least square block adjustment), by means of Erdas 2016 photogram-
metric suite. In the case of flat documents, a rectification process

5. 208 G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212
Fig. 5. Screenshoot of the GIS, with the synthetic prospect of the Arc used as reference base, rectified according to the real size of the Arc itself (as it can be seen from the
measurement tool). On the left layer panel, the vector polygons are organized in groups according to the kind of drawing they describe.
was performed, followed by mosaicking, whereas in the case of
deformed documents and stereoscopic acquisition, the process
consisted in orthorectification with mosaicking. This way the recti-
fied images (in geotiff format) are georeferenced with dimensions
reflecting the real size of the related documents; therefore, in a GIS
environment, it is possible to take measurements as they would be
taken on the real documents (Fig. 4).
4.2. Construction of a database of the catalogue records
All the catalogue records of the drawings of the Arc by Mengoni,
in the Archive kept together in a volume, were digitized and merged
in a database. The fields of the database respect the content of the
records: inventory number, historical inventory, negative/s, kind
of document, metric scale, geographic place, object, description,
notes, author, date, material, size, technique, state of preservation.
The created database is useful not only to make targeted queries,
but also to be implemented in a GIS, as described in the following
section.
It is good to highlight how in this case it would be impossible
to adopt metadata standards, because, as mentioned in section 3.2,
the structure of the catalogue records was specifically developed for
the Mengoni Archive, decades ago, and they would not suffice to
fill in the records of current metadata standards, given the limited
information available on the documents. Anyway, an expansion of
the data with the creation of standard metadata for the Mengoni
Archive could be taken into account in the next future for an online
GIS solution, once defined IPR and regulations; at the moment the
GIS has been designed to be accessed on-site by the users of the
Archive.
4.3. Construction of a GIS for archive documentation
Once the geometrically corrected images of the documents had
been realized, and the database of the catalogue records created, a
GIS to systematize all information was constructed.
As well known, a GIS is a tool for collection, management and
analysis of geospatial data, georeferenced in a same geo/carto-
graphic coordinate system. The potentiality of a GIS to maintain
and manage historical datasets, e.g. old maps acquired in a digital
form and archive sources (in such a case the system can be named
HGIS, i.e. Historical GIS), has been proved by several authors, e.g.
[7,33,34].
In this case, the GIS technology was used in the description of
the archive documentation concerning the project development of
the big Arc. It was decided to use this solution – original in the field
of archive – for its specific kind of data structure, conceptually sim-
ilar to an archive organization, in which it is necessary to locate
exactly where each data is referred, both in visual and numerical
ways. In recent years, experiments on the use of the GIS technol-
ogy for conservation, restoration and management of Architectural
Heritage have been conducted by different entities [11,12,35,36],
even though not for archive purposes, as the present study intends
to pursue.
For the aim, QGIS open-source software was used. The following
steps were taken for the construction of the GIS:
• georeferencing of a synthetic prospect of the Arc, to be used as ref-
erence base for displaying the documents and supporting further
elaborations;

6. G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212 209
Fig. 6. Vector polygon relative to a column, linked to the rectified image of the
relative document and its catalogue record.
• vectorization of the portions of the Arc related to the areal cov-
erage of the single documents maintained in the database, and
establishment of a corresponding link;
• arrangement of the vector polygons in groups, according to the
kind of drawing they refer to;
• setting of a timeline (for search and display of the documents
according to the time variable).
As synthetic prospect of the Arc, a drawing made by Mengoni
himself was used. The rectified image (obtained as explained in
the section 4.1) was newly georeferenced in a fictitious coordinate
system, with values according to the real size of the Arc; this way,
it is possible to take measurements on the drawing resembling the
real measurements it would be possible to take on the Arc (Fig. 5).
Vectorization of the portions of arc represented on the various
documents and links to the related documents were carried out, in
order to have a simple and intuitive tool for the users of the Archive
to search and consult the documents of interest. In fact, selecting
a point of the Arc in the main drawing allows opening of the high-
resolution rectified image of the inherent document/s (Fig. 6). Each
vector polygon is identifiable by the identification number of the
related document, reported on both the document itself and the
catalogue records.
In order to perform specific searches among the documents, bas-
ing on the fields of the catalogue records (year, document size, etc.),
integration between the vector polygons (linked to the images of
the documents) and the database of the catalogue records was set
up. This way, in fact, the data table of each vector polygon have
come to be composed exactly by the fields of the catalogue records
(Fig. 7).
Finally, the vector polygons were arranged in groups, according
to the principal kinds of document into which it is possible to group
the drawings by Mengoni (prospects, sections, details) (Fig. 5).
Moreover, in the TimeManager plug-in [37], an ordering of the vec-
tor polygons based on the year of realization of the documents was
made (Fig. 8). This way, exploiting the timeline integrated in the
plug-in, it is possible to make subsequently visible on the GIS the
layers according to the year of realization of the documents (e.g.
display only of the documents realized in a certain year, or from a
certain year to the end of the construction) and make a very expres-
sive animation, showing how and where the project was developed
during the time.
4.4. Future developments: 3D based approach
In order to produce a first expeditious 3D model of the big Arc, to
be integrated into the GIS, a photogrammetric terrestrial survey of
the object was carried out. Over 400 photos were taken by means of
a DSLR camera from different positions and different heights, both
in normal and convergent directions. The Structure from Motion
(SfM) multi-view technique [5,38] was adopted to realize the three-
dimensional modeling of the object. The resulting georeferenced 3D
digital model of the big Arc, notwithstanding some gaps due to the
current impossibility to take photos from the top, describes very
well the architecture of the object (Fig. 9); it was linked to the GIS,
from which it is possible to open it in the dedicated software. In this
way it is possible to interact with the model taking measurements
useful for different purposes.
5. Results
The tool developed in this study exploits the GIS technology,
even though is not a real GIS, due to the fact that the managed data
are not of geographical kind. The choice of using GIS as a system for
manage a digital archive finds anyway justification in the kind of
organization of the data and the tools of measurement, search and
analysis that can be exploited in such an environment.
Concerning the organization of the data, the GIS is structured
according the real object the documents describe (a prospect of the
Arc overlaid with vector polygons corresponding to the portions of
the Arc represented on the various documents); for this reason it is
firstly visual, therefore intuitive, because it is based on the classical
eye perception. Moreover, it is immediate, because selecting a vec-
tor polygon (referred to the architectural element which it covers)
allows high resolution metrical consultation of the inherent digi-
tal document (this way avoiding material consultation, which can
further deteriorate the delicate analogue document), with access
to the archival references.
Concerning the typical tools of the GIS environment (measure-
ment, search and analysis), they can be profitably employed in this
case. Measurements of elements of the Arc can be performed in
real size, on the prospect used as cartographic base for the GIS, as
well as in document-size, on the rectified images of the documents.
In fact, the photogrammetric acquisition of the documents allowed
access to them in a metric way, with the possibility to perform mea-
sures on them; that is unusual for archive or museum collections,
where normally the images of the documents are not rectified, and
allows to safeguard documents that are often in poor condition.
Moreover, indexing and searching – certainly the most useful tools
for an archive – are allowed, according to different – and more than
one at a time – criteria. In such a digital archive, it is possible to carry
out also complex searches among the graphical and textual docu-
ments – a very difficult or even impossible operation on an analogue
archive [39] – for instance search for which documents are sized
larger than a certain value and are in bad conditions of preserva-
tion (e.g. because they could be the first subject to be restored), or
search for all drawings concerning specific architectural elements
(e.g. capitals in marble), or search for all plans made in a certain
period of time (e.g. for a study on a specific work of Mengoni). For

7. 210 G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212
Fig. 7. The database of the catalogue records in the GIS project; as example, the metadata of the document of Fig. 4 is opened.
Fig. 8. Structure of the GIS: from top to bottom, exploration over time (the vector polygons, turned on by the timeline according to their reference data, highlight the
development phases of the project of the big Arc); from (a) to (d), consultation of a document (image and metadata) by clicking on the relative vector polygon in a specific
time.
the latter kind of search, in this case the timeline appears much
suitable and intuitive. Finally, being in a GIS environment, various
kinds of further analysis are allowed: data can be searched and put
in relation to each other, extracted and integrated with other data,
also of different type, and new map and data can be generated.
In addition to the aims of a digital archive (archive searches
and digital consultations, in particular), such a GIS proves to be an
extremely useful tool also for who studies Architecture Heritage,
as it allows an innovative reading and a complete comprehension
of the architectural project, in each step of its development. In fact,
from both the timeline and the layer structure it emerges how the
phases of project – and subsequent construction – of the Arc have
followed. In this case, for instance, it clearly emerges how Mengoni
has devoted himself firstly to the project of architectural particu-
lars (e.g. capitals, see Fig. 5) instead of the entire structure (probably
because he exploited motives already used for the project of the big
Gallery), or also the pause in the project phase (between 1873 and
1876), due to other work commitments of Mengoni (Fig. 8). Finally,
for a complete knowledge of the big Arc, a 3D digital model linked
to the GIS can allow the exploration of the architectural object in a
three-dimensional environment, with the possibility of taking real
measurements directly on it.
6. Conclusions and future developments
In the present paper, a new approach in the field of archives
was tested, with the creation of a digital system for an intuitive
search and consultation among the graphical and textual docu-
ments relative to an architectural project (in the specific case of
the big Arc of entrance of the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery of Milan,
in Italy). It was proved that the GIS technology, employed in this
study, even though usually dedicated to geographical data, can be
efficiently employed for archive documentation (allowing intuitive
visualizations, in-depth queries, interactive consultations and mea-

8. G. Bitelli et al. / Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019) 204–212 211
Fig. 9. Expeditious 3D digital model of the big Arc: (a) view from the bottom, (b) view from SE, (c) view from SW.
surements of documents), and for an innovative reading of the
architectural object which the physical archive describes.
A future improvement of the research will be to complete and
extend the database, inserting all the documents inherent the Arc
and the whole Gallery, making available the tool and the infor-
mation for the users of the Archive. Moreover, the obtained 3D
model (at the moment only linked to the GIS), once completed,
could be used in a HBIM project, repeating in a three-dimensional
environment the approach developed in this study.
Finally, a possible interesting application in the museum area
could be to develop a system in which the digital Archive, which is
accessed via the GIS, is linked to multimedia content related to the
life and work of Mengoni and the events that happened in those
years. This way the Archive and the GIS could serve as a key to
reading the complex figure of Mengoni.
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