Interning at Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome with Prof. Paolo Vitti

In the Summer 2024, Prof. Paolo Vitti led two School of Architecture undergraduate students in a six-week and one in a three-week internship, at the Mausoleum of Hadrian/Castel S. Angelo in Rome. The internship was made possible thanks to the support from the SoA and Notre Dame Rome. This was part of a wider project that received a grant from the university for three years and subsequent to an MOU signed with the Musei Statali di Roma and with the collaboration of the University of Padova and Università Roma Tre.

During their internship Devlin Hose (Notre Dame ‘26), Mia Paolella (Notre Dame ‘26), Nate McLeod (Notre Dame ‘26) have had exclusive access to the mausoleum and were taught by Prof. Vitti the old fashioned way of studying complex layered buildings through onsite drawings.

“Digital technologies have enhanced capacities to document and analyze heritage,” comments Vitti. “They have become indispensable tools that allow more precision and better understanding of historic buildings. At the same time, there is a need to continue to work onsite to complement documentation with information that can be gathered only through direct contact.”

The Notre Dame School of Architecture is renowned for teaching students to draw by hand and this ability is applied to the archeology detective work of professionals to heritage monuments. By drawing a layered monument all the attention is captured by the slightest detail unlike with digital tools.

“People think that digital tools will provide them alone with the interpretation,” says Prof. Vitti. “This is partially true: indeed they are a good asset to be added to critical thinking in order to understand how to use them and what they communicate to you. It is very crucial nowadays, in the digital era, not to miss the old approaches to the study of heritage and monuments. In order to do so we need to invest in new generations.”

The Mausoleum of Hadrian is one of the most important symbols of the Eternal City, and the fourth most visited museum in Italy. Its architecture has not been previously researched in a thorough manner as in current research by the University of Notre Dame. Reconstruction proposals in the past are conjectural and not based on a scientific approach. The ongoing research project aims to examine onsite the remains, understand the historical layering, and distinguish the Roman structures from the later ones. From a rough estimate, it is considered that 80% of the original Roman structure is still preserved, while only 40% is visible to the visitors. Other parts that are “hidden” are being unveiled by Prof. Vitti and the students through current research. The objective is to identify all the Roman parts and scientifically reconstruct the original architecture.

During the 6-week internship Prof. Vitti has organized a workshop entitled “Documenting layered Heritage: a workshop on the Mausoleum of Hadrian, Rome” in collaboration with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and the Michael Christopher Duda center for preservation, sustainability and resilience. The workshop took place at the headquarters of ICCROM, Castel S.Angelo and Notre Dame Rome.

The workshop gathered nine professionals from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, China and US. For eight days participants discussed digital tools and hand drawings to analyze and interpret the Roman structures of Castel Sant’Angelo. Onsite activities consisted of using the digital drawings (laser scans, photogrammetry and Lidar) to generate 2D drawings which will be used for on-site hand drawings. Drawings highlighted materials, building techniques and building phases, with an effort to relate each single part to the whole.