Digital reintegration of fragmented wall paintings: 3D texture mapping of historical photographs in the Santos Juanes church restoration

One of the main challenges faced during the final phases of the project to reintegrate the wall paintings assembly of the church of Santos Juanes in the city of Valencia (Spain) was achieving a three-dimensional fit of the pictorial program onto the irregular vault of the central nave. These frescoes, painted by the renowned artist Antonio Palomino at the end of the 17th century, were partially damaged by a fire in 1936. A subsequent and poorly executed restoration further damaged the works by removing them from the vault and dividing them into irregular panels, failing to preserve their original appearance and compositional balance. In this new restoration project, digital techniques are being used to return the displaced paintings to their original positions. The virtual reintegration of the iconographic program through the digital processing of historical photographs has allowed for the recovery of the artwork and the enhancement of the few surviving original fragments. The solution presented in this study is based on a methodology that constructs the optimal design so that the surface of each of the panels (parts into which the painting has been divided) adjusts to the curvature and irregular form of the vault. This ensures that the figures and allegorical characters of the paintings retain visual continuity, allowing the viewers to experience the restored paintings as closely as possible to how the painter originally intended. To plan the restoration accurately, it was necessary to develop a detailed, textured 3D model of the architectural surfaces that housed the paintings, the barrel vault of the nave and the quarter-sphere vault of the chancel, onto which any available images from historical photographs taken before the fire were precisely adapted, enabling a virtual reconstruction of Antonio Palomino's original wall paintings. • The paintings, which were severely damaged by a fire in 1936, are now being meticulously reintegrated using a unique digital approach • This process has been possible thanks to a series of black and white photographs taken before the fire, which serve as a key piece for physically restoring original wall paintings • Using UV mapping of historical photographs allows their image to be projected onto a 3D digital model of the church, enabling restorers to create a detailed virtual representation of the paintings • It's a powerful example of how modern technology can serve as a bridge to the past, enabling the recovery and preservation of our cultural heritage