Computerization and Management of Archive Sources for the Study of Urban Cultural Heritage

This paper deals with the use of advanced GIS techniques for the study of modern and contemporary cities. A methodology for the selection, computerization, integration, and management of archive sources is developed to create a historical GIS of Rome in the 18 century. Further on, transformations, organization and functions of the urban space are analyzed in depth using GIS functions. Building density, land use distribution, public and private spaces, the laic and the religious city, the archaeology, the urban quality and aesthetics, are only a few examples of the outputs obtained. The acquired historical information results perfectly comparable with the actual situation, thus offering the possibility for detailed diachronic analysis. The utility of this approach relays on the opportunity to perform homogeneous spatial analysis, to elaborate historical topographical statistics, to diachronically compare phenomena thanks to the spatial overlay of the data. But the most important aspect of the GIS approach to urban historical studies is represented by the opportunity of integrating within the system information retrieved from different archive sources, provided that they can be structured as databases.