The Lapidary of Palazzo Ancarano, head office of the Archaeological Superintendence of Emilia Romagna

In Italy, in the academic field, there are many cases of collaboration between the University and various institutions protecting Cultural Heritage. It is made possible due to the large amount of archaeological heritage requiring restoration interventions and thanks to the need from students to put their skills into practice. This is the case of the partnership between the Archaeological Superintendence of Emilia Romagna and the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna (Italy) established in 2012. This collaboration has permitted to open an important restoration site in order to recover the Lapidary located in the courtyard of the historical Palazzo Ancarano. The restoration project was developed over a period of three years, plus an additional year to reorganize the exhibition path. The maintenance of an archaeological find was assigned to each student with the purpose of producing a thorough and complete documentation on the intervention made, necessary to leave a proof of the methods and materials used. A targeted work on every archaeological find present in the court, having an aim to arrange them around the perimeter of it in chronological order based on historical era. At the conclusion of the restoration and reorganization of the area, it is now necessary to add value in particular to the stele collection: pre-Roman, Roman and Medieval. This objective will be reached by opening the courtyard of the Palazzo Ancarano to the public, to bring again its original function, that is, a museum. To reach this purpose, we propose to use appropriate digital technologies associated with the archaeological items on display to improve the understanding of the collection by a wide variety of visitors, we intend to provide an instrument presenting information of various levels of detail and thoroughness enabling each visitor to deepen their knowledge according to their own interest.