Gioiosa Guardia: prime indagini per un progetto di valorizzazione e restauro attraverso metodologia HBIM

The settlement of Gioiosa Guardia is presented today as an archaeological site of a city founded in the eleventh century AD, located in northern Sicily, in the province of Messina, framed between the Tyrrhenian coast of the Gulf of Patti and the Nebrodi and Peloritani mountains. Gioiosa Guardia was founded in 1094 on the top of Mount Meliuso, 800 meters above sea level, from the Patti Bishopric, then passing in 1361 under the command of Vinciguerra d'Aragona, who, after having erected a castle, gave it the definitive urban layout and started its agricultural development. The elevated position has been, since its foundation, the true strength of Gioiosa Guardia, allowing this the full control of the surrounding territories. After a series of seismic events, culminating with the most intense in 1783, Gioiosa Guardia was completely razed to the ground and its inhabitants abandoned it to move to the coast, where they founded a new city called Gioiosa Marea. The present work, starting from the state of the art of research, had the objective of developing an accurate survey of the ruins of Gioiosa Guardia with the latest aerophotogrammetry technologies, through the use of digital reconstruction processes based on S.f.M. From the 3D texturized and geo-referenced model created, the final elaborations consisting in HD orthophotos in metric scale were first realized and vectorized, and subsequently, on the basis of these, the whole spectrum of diagnostic analyzes was conducted. Finally, through the adoption of the HBIM methodology, a simplified 3D model was created, containing a database of all the works on which to set up a future restoration project and site enhancement.