La basilica di Herdonia. Esperienze e riflessioni sul rilievo e la rappresentazione del monumento

Object of the present investigation are the ruins of the judicial basilica of Herdonia.Of it, some walls fragments and a few capitals, situated on columns bases, remain. The research, developed to analyze and understand this building, follows a cognitive run in which base and applied research are conjugated at different levels of study and analysis. The disciplines of drawing and survey can offer a contribution to knowledge and understanding of a building reduced to the state of ruin, as tools of experimentation, control and verification of the hypotheses related to building spatial warp. The survey documents all the surviving architectural passages. The drawing, thanks to its ability of analysis, performs a disassembling of the complex architectural reality in more meaningful parts, recognizing their role. Drawing, finally, as graphic model, contributes to connect all the parts of the architectural organism attempting to find again the original architectural unity. The first level is carried out by analyzing the monument rests by means of historical and iconographic investigations, parallelly developed. Through survey, the relationships system can be understood, relating the building fragments, despite subject continuum lack. Its form and dimensions, constructive, technological, structural, and distributive characteristics, are recognized, basing on a priori judgments, founded on preceding studies. Somehow they allow to prefigure the original spatial and formal organicity. A further level of analysis is carried on the comparison with other existing Roman basilicas, having modules and proportions similar to the Herdonia building. The civil basilicas taken into account are located in centre-southern Italy. In these, some parts lacking in Herdonia are individuated: columns flutes and shaft, wall and column height and trabeation fragments. The last level of study is of comparative-theoretical type: it is based on the analyses of proportion indicated in Vitruvio’s De Architectura, for what regards both the spatial distribution and style elements. Evaluations deriving by all these investigations allow to formulate hypothesis about the building ideal reconstruction. The graphic model synthesizes all the interpretations and judgments previously formulated and directly communicates the collected informations. The proposed ideal reconstruction of the Herdonia basilica could contribute to further developments of specific deeper researches.