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As per the objectives of Project CHANGES, particularly its thematic sub-project on the use of virtual technologies for museums and art collections, our goal was to obtain a digital twin of the temporary exhibition on Ulisse Aldrovandi called "The Other Renaissance", and make it accessible to users online. After a preliminary study of the exhibition, focussing on acquisition constraints and related solutions, we proceeded with the digital twin creation by acquiring, processing, modelling, optimising, exporting, and metadating the exhibition. We made hybrid use of two acquisition techniques to create new digital cultural heritage objects and environments, and we used open technologies, formats, and protocols to make available the final digital product. Here, we describe the process of collecting and curating bibliographical exhibition (meta)data and the beginning of the digital twin creation to foster its findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The creation of the digital twin is currently ongoing.

Introductory essay to the special issue

Collaborative data collection initiatives are increasingly becoming pivotal to cultural institutions and scholars, to boost the population of born-digital archives. For over a decade, organisations have been leveraging Semantic Web technologies to design their workflows, ensure data quality, and a means for sharing and reusing (Linked Data). Crucially, scholarly projects that leverage cultural heritage data to collaboratively develop new resources would benefit from agile solutions to simplify the Linked Data production workflow via user-friendly interfaces. To date, only a few pioneers have abandoned legacy cataloguing and archiving systems to fully embrace the Linked Open Data (LOD) paradigm and manage their catalogues or research products through LOD-native management systems. In this article we present Crowdsourcing Linked Entities via web Form (CLEF) , an agile LOD-native platform for collaborative data collection, peer-review, and publication. We detail design choices as motivated by two case studies, from the Cultural Heritage and scholarly domains respectively, and we discuss benefits of our solution in the light of prior works. In particular, the strong focus on user-friendly interfaces for producing FAIR data, the provenance-aware editorial process, and the integration with consolidated data management workflows, distinguish CLEF as a novel attempt to develop Linked Data platforms for cultural heritage.

Many acoustic studies have been carried out in the Italian theatres built during the 17th and 18th centuries. Along with the development of technology, acoustic measurements become increasingly more accurate, able to capture the faithful acoustic conditions of these cultural heritage buildings that are considered icons for representing the house of sound. Although considered controversial for their innovative geometry and shape, the plan layouts proposed by the architect Antonio Galli Bibiena for the theatres placed in Bologna and Mantua were remarkable and appreciated by the audience given the florid artistical program run over the seasons. Site were undertaken in order to analyse the acoustic response of the main halls. From the recorded impulse response, both monoaural and binaural acoustic parameters were compared between the two theatres, where the analysis separately considered the stalls and balconies. The historical background of the selected theatres was detailed to understand the acoustic behaviour of the main halls.

Il conflitto russo-ucraino, oltre a causare un'inaccettabile perdita di vite umane, sta mettendo a dura prova l'integrità del patrimonio culturale dell'Ucraina, nonostante il fatto che entrambi i paesi coinvolti sono parti della Convenzione dell'Aia del 1954 per la protezione dei beni culturali in caso di armi Conflitto e il suo primo protocollo. Le Chiese sono uno dei beni storici più importanti dell'Ucraina come luoghi simbolici di identità religiosa ortodossa comune sia agli invasori e invaso. Il distruzione di questi luoghi e il loro danno intenzionale da entrambe le parti sembrano essere parte di un conflitto più generale riguardante disaccordi interni tra ortodossia russa e ucraina, che, a loro volta, riflettono due diversi punti di vista storici del rapporto russo-ucraino. Un breve ricostruzione delle relazioni tra le Chiese ortodosse operanti sul territorio ucraino dimostra come l'appartenenza religiosa ha influenzato il conflitto, facendolo diventare decisivo e profondamente divisiva, tanto che il Patriarcato di Mosca è diventato una parte attiva del conflitto. Questa circostanza favorisce l'ipotesi che sia proprio il patrimonio culturale religioso più a rischio di distruzione intenzionale. I russi, distruggendo i luoghi simbolici di ucraino identità religiosa (urbicide), affermare l'unità spirituale dei popoli russo e ucraino. Per la loro parte, gli ucraini tentano di cancellare la presenza russa e le comuni radici culturali religiose distruggendo edifici di culto cari alla tradizione del Patriarcato di Mosca (cancellare la cultura). Rifiutano le tradizioni imperiali della Russia e, allo stesso tempo, rivendicano una Chiesa indipendente. Ci si chiede se il processo di ricostruzione dopo la guerra terrà conto le identità culturali-religiose originali, o se coglierà l'occasione per adottare un nuovo (anche) l'identità religiosa, invece, e se i vecchi e nuovi strumenti offerti dalla legge siano adeguati. The Russian–Ukrainian conflict, in addition to causing an unacceptable loss of human life, is straining the integrity of Ukraine’s cultural heritage, despite the fact that both countries involved are parties to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its First Protocol. Churches are one of Ukraine’s most important historical assets, as well as symbolic places of Orthodox religious identity common to both the invaders and the invaded. The destruction of these places and their deliberate damage on the part of both sides appear to be part of a more general conflict concerning internal disagreements between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which, in turn, reflect two different historical views of the Russian–Ukrainian relationship. A brief reconstruction of relations between the Orthodox Churches operating on the territory of Ukraine demonstrates how religious affiliation has affected the conflict, causing it to become decisive and deeply divisive, so much so that the Patriarchate of Moscow has become an active part of the conflict. This circumstance favours the hypothesis that it is precisely the religious cultural heritage that is most at risk of deliberate destruction. The Russians, by destroying the symbolic places of Ukrainian religious identity (urbicide), affirm the spiritual unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. For their part, the Ukrainians attempt to erase the Russian presence and the common religious cultural roots by destroying buildings of worship dear to the tradition of the Moscow Patriarchate (cancel culture). They reject the imperial traditions of Russia and, at the same time, claim an independent Church. The question arises as to whether the reconstruction process following the war will take into account the original cultural–religious identities, or whether it will take the opportunity to adopt a new (also) religious identity instead, and whether the old and new instruments offered by law are adequate.

The Ponchielli theater of Cremona was built in 1808 after a fire destroyed the old wooden structure. The interior, the architecture and the shape of the plan layout are reminiscent of the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, a masterpiece by the architect Piermarini, albeit on a smaller scale. The four orders of balconies crowned by the top gallery are typical features of a 19th Century Italian Opera theater. Acoustic measurements have been undertaken across the stalls and in some selected boxes according to ISO 3382. The main acoustic parameters resulting from the measurements have been used for the acoustic calibration of a 3D model representing the Ponchielli theater. The calibration has been used to compare different scenarios involving the acoustic response of the main hall at 50% and 100% occupancy. The outcomes indicate that no significant change can be detected when the seats are provided with robust upholstery, which can be considered a positive result, especially for the actors who are not forced to change their effort between rehearsal and live performance. In order to contextualize the measured values in relation to the optimal ones, a comparison with other Italian Opera theaters provided with similar architectural characteristics has been carried out. Overall, the findings indicate that the acoustics of the Ponchielli theater are suitable for both music and speech in line with the other selected theaters, as these places were mainly created for multifunctional purposes in the 19th Century.