Abstract

The painting of the Rua Nova dos Mercadores kept at Kelmscott Manor (Society of Antiquarians of London) portrays a view of a long-lost commercial street in early modern Lisbon. The painting showcases the variety of peoples that captured the imagination of those writers and travellers who described the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city. In this canvas, the building fabric acts as a backdrop to the scene; the painting renders the main themes in the foreground. Even though the urban fabric is relegated to a secondary plane on the canvas, its representation provides unprecedented information on the architecture of early modern Lisbon. This essay explores the research, methods and processes followed to create a scaled 3D digital model of the urban environment shown on the Rua Nova painting. The aim of the digital project was to re-create visually the architecture of the street depicted in the canvas and to investigate scale (measurements), materials and textures. In other words, the objective of this project was to build digitally a scaled three-dimensional model of a two-dimensional object (i.e., the painting).