Description, Representation and Knowledge: the Èkphrasis of the Trani Swabian Castle / Descrivere, rappresentare e conoscere: l’èkphrasis del Castello Svevo di Trani

The study illustrates the methodological and applicative aspects of digital representation workflows to describe analyses and reconstructions of transformations of historical architectural heritage. These visual descriptions, aimed at implementing knowledge and facilitating the interpretation of built her-itage, can be considered as expressions of èkphrasis. Through the case study of the Trani Swabian Castle, a representative example of the architecture built under Emperor Frederick II of Swabia, the research focused on the inner courtyard of the castle, proposing, through reconstructive digital modelling, the visualisation of its layout in the medieval period. These reconstructions are based on a careful analysis and interpretation of bibliographical, archival and iconographic sources, wooden mod-els and existing surveys. The research, which is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between two academic institutions and a museum, illustrates the advantages of the adopted operational meth-odology for several fields of application relating to conservation and restoration, cultural dissemination and communication in museums.