Workflow for an evidence-based virtual reconstruction: the marbles of the ciborium of the early medieval Monte Sorbo church

The paper presents a practical approach to define a hypothetical virtual reconstruction of the ciborium and pergola of Monte Sorbo's Church. The high accuracy of archaeological fragments, digitally acquired, allowed to hypothesize the entire sequences of decorations of architectural elements and to define their geometrical rules. Starting from the acquisition to the 3d modelling phase, the proposed virtual reconstruction combines original fragments with their lost parts modelled in a digital environment. Digital technologies offer nowadays the great possibility to visualize and understand cultural heritage in a new and attractive way. Digital models and virtual reconstructions have a key role in encouraging and promoting the development of good practices for recording, documenting, and making accessible scientific processes beyond visual appearance. The term virtual reconstruction, within the project, is used to describe a procedure that consists of making a 3D model that reproduces a digital copy of the original, assembling digitally acquired fragments with elements philologically reconstructed following the evidence-based geometrical rules. This study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring possibilities on digital integration of different 3d models to re-define a visual appearance of lost architectural elements.