Rilievo integrato per l’interpretazione del sistema fortificato della città di Otranto: la Porta Alfonsina

The historic nucleus of the city of Otranto preserves the ancient city walls almost in their entirety, the result of transformations carried out over several centuries. Within the framework of the PRIN 2022 PNRR research project MAP_FORT, the unit of the Polytechnic University of Bari is working on the study of the city’s fortified system, which, starting from the instrumental survey of architectural emergencies, attempts to systematise the large quantity of data from bibliographic and archival research. The contribution presents the partial results of the study on one of the three entrances that currently open in the city walls, the Porta Alfonsina, consisting of an archway flanked by two towers. Instrumental surveys, integrating laser scanning and photogrammetric technologies, are an essential phase of the research, which aims to study the gate, and the defensive system connected to it, consisting of the adjacent walls, the auricle facing it and the hypothetical ravelin in front of it, attempting to reconstruct the chronological sequence of the construction phases.