Dr Olga Concetta Patroni recognised for research in digital heritage

12 Jun 2026

Dr Olga Concetta Patroni has been awarded the CDE-DTC Lazio Award 2025, a prestigious recognition established by the Centre of Excellence DTC Lazio to honour outstanding doctoral research in advanced technologies for cultural heritage.

Dr Patroni is a researcher on the Minimal Curation project at the School of English & Digital Humanities, University College Cork.

Her PhD thesis, Philological, Art-Historical and Technological Approaches to the Virtual Reconstruction of Night-Time Heritage Experiences: The “Golden Grotto” of Gaeta and the Fountain Hall at Villa d’Este, was selected as one of the winning projects within Spoke 4 – Virtual Technologies for Museums and Art Collections.

Dr Patroni’s research addresses a significant challenge in the field of digital heritage. While many virtual reconstructions focus primarily on the geometric and architectural representation of historic sites, her work proposes a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach that combines 3D modelling with the philological reconstruction of historical lighting environments.

The research integrates documentary sources, digital surveying techniques and photogrammetry to recreate not only the physical appearance of heritage spaces but also the atmospheric conditions through which they were originally experienced. The methodology was applied to two historically significant case studies: the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Golden Grotto in Gaeta, and the Fountain Hall at Villa d’Este.

The resulting framework enables the physically based simulation of environmental phenomena and historical lighting conditions, offering immersive and scientifically grounded reconstructions of cultural heritage sites. This approach provides new opportunities for understanding and interpreting historic environments, particularly where original conditions have been altered or lost over time.