ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model CULHER-3837; No. of Pages 14 Journal of Cultural Heritage xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Available online at ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com Original article Analysing, modelling and promoting tangible and intangible values of building heritage with historic flame lighting system P. Lassandro a,* , C.S. Fioriello b , M. Lepore a , M. Zonno a a National Research Council of Italy, Construction Technologies Institute, Bari Branch, Via Paolo Lembo 38/b -70124 Bari, Italy b Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici (DISUM), Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Piazza Umberto I - 70121 Bari, Italy a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 7 May 2020 Accepted 20 September 2020 Available online xxx Keywords: Lighting scenarios Artificial lighting by flame Roman and medieval oil lamps Building heritage Valorisation Digital survey Virtual reality. a b s t r a c t The aim of this research is to define a multidisciplinary method capable of enhancing the tangible and intangible values of the historical-cultural heritage through the virtual reconstruction of the ancient internal flame lighting systems. The survey by laser scanner and/or by digital photogrammetry and solid modelling were the techniques used to carry out the three-dimensional reconstructions of the artefacts. The 3D model based on archaeological and historical documentation made it possible to define the lighting scenarios according to various historical-interpretative hypotheses and the reconstruction of the used luminaires. Instead, the laboratory experiments on the flame allowed obtaining the scientific reference parameters to be used in the virtual reconstruction of the lighting scenarios. This method was validated in two different case studies. The first is a cave church in Matera, a medieval religious building built entirely in the ravine with evident architectural signs that enabled to identify the ancient lighting systems. The second is a Roman villa in Mola di Bari, a devastated archaeological site among which several Roman lamps were found, thanks to which it was possible to start the study of light. In addition to making an important contribution to the community of scholars, the lighting scenarios obtained from the research also aim to enhance the architectural artefacts and promote the related history knowledge for future generations. Virtual reality, augmented reality and online 3d visualization can be some of the possible applications towards which this research can converge to promote the fruition of cultural heritage. © 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. Introduction Until the 19th c. and the discovery of electricity, the main source of artificial lighting is fire and all the means that man has ever used for producing light were devices of saving and containing fire [1]. They are timeless and universal and were not confined to a single area, nor to a particular age, and nonetheless the difference is the fuel and the type of vessel, if and when one is used, in which the fire is kept [2–4]. Different artificial lighting devices, without substantial changes, were used from ancient times to middle-ages, such as torches, can- dles and lamps, not only to carry out activities after the sunset but also for other functions (e.g. religious aim and ceremonies). Start- ing from the Roman period, the spouted terracotta lamps were the principal means of lighting and these devices are found in almost * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: paola.lassandro@itc.cnr.it (P. Lassandro), custode.fioriello@uniba.it (C.S. Fioriello), lepore@itc.cnr.it (M. Lepore), mzonno@itc.cnr.it (M. Zonno). every excavation throughout the Mediterranean, also providing a good indicator for dating the context [5–7]. Moreover, the studies regarding lamp finds offer a wide range of information on lamp typology, chronology, iconography, and pro- duction [8] but, as many scholars have recently pointed out [9,4,6], the specific artificial lighting, though a crucial factor in human daily needs, is largely overlooked in archaeological research. According to O’Dea [10], «this may be due to the difficulty of describing the sensation of light», since «it is easy to describe a candlestick, but very hard to convey any idea of the light obtained from the candle». Thus, it is necessary to combine the results of traditional archae- ological methods, the experimental and measurable data and the scientific tools in an attempt to produce information on lighting in antiquity [10,7]. In fact, this purpose, regarding light in the ancient world, has hardly only concerned particular contexts and case studies in order to collect literary sources and to investigate the art, the technol- ogy, the cult and the human activities linked to the use of lighting devices [11–14,3,4]. Nevertheless, there are researches that deliver an overview of the performance assessment of ancient lighting devices able to provide scholars with valuable information on the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2020.09.013 1296-2074/© 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: P. Lassandro, et al., Analysing, modelling and promoting tangible and intangible values of building heritage with historic flame lighting system, Journal of Cultural Heritage, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2020.09.013