The Montalbano Fortress in La Spezia, third session and last notes

The essay completes the presentation of the extensive digital survey of the Montalbano Fortress in La Spezia, Italy, previously presented in the editions 2024 and 2025 of the Fortmed conference. The documentation operations were brought on in 2024-2025 by a team of the Department of Architecture, University of Florence in collaboration with La Spezia Municipality, and were aimed to create the most accurate and complete documentation about the complex and huge fortress placed on the top of the hills closing to the North the city structure. In the present paper the research arrives to its conclusion with the need of giving an ending to a very complex subject where extended construction and old terraforming, destructive interventions, long decay, and the tentative of colonization by the local plants has created a changeling subject complete of very dangerous sectors were the progressive alteration of the structures has left fascinating, but also disquieting, damaged ruins. With the use of 3D Laser Scanner, terrestrial photogrammetry and Virtual Reality cameras it was possible to create a detailed digital replica of this huge complex, documenting all the accessible spaces and entering, after decades, in the areas isolated by the German Army’s mines which destroyed large sectors of the fortress at the end of the World War Two. After almost one century since being abandoned the area may have an extremely robust potential giving a new possible eyesight on the Gulf of La Spezia, and becoming a landscape regeneration challenge, both in terms of quality and of administration. In this scenario, a proper use of digital tools for documentation and dissemination is more than ever a strategic ally for a next recovery.