The Virtual Workshop
new paradigms for preserving and manufacturing

by Felice Ragazzo

“The Virtual Shop” illustrates the problems related to the manufacture of the wooden copy of the bed of bone, the so-called “Amplero bed”. The occasion offers not only the opportunity to picture innovative scenarios based on digital technologies but also the occasion to exploit proven techniques of Italian handicraft. The most complex parts have been machined by a CNC-machining center, controlled by a mathematical model based on laser dimensional detection. Finishes and simple parts have been shaped by hand using traditional woodworking tools. The bed, a rarity in its kind, is a funerary object of Italic culture, dating back to the 1st century B.C., discovered at Amplero, a locality of Collelongo district, in the province of L’Aquila.
 
1. Conditions for the copy reproduction
2. Technical problems
3. The problem of the feed lines
4. The reason for the choice of the pear-tree wood
5. Other materials
6. Considerations on the meaning of the operation carried out
7. Tradition and innovation in the training of new skilled operators
8. A provisory estimation

For any information about the object’s description, i.e. the history of its discovery and its restoration, please refer to the scientific publications by Prof. Cesare Letta, archaeologist and teacher at “Università degli Studi” of Pisa, and particularly to the two following works:
 
- C. Letta, Due letti in osso lavorato dal centro italico-romano delta Valle di Amplero (Abruzzo), in Mon. Ant. Linc.., Ser. Mosc. 111-3, 1984, pp. 67-114;
- C. Letta, Dormire tra linci e amorini, iri Archeo or. 64, June 1990.

In order to have a satisfactory comprehension of the problems related to the restoration, it is absolutely necessary to refer to the technical report made by skilled operators and by the designer of the “Restoration Center Of The Superintendence of Archaeology of the Region of Tuscany” (“Centro di Restauro della Sopraintendenza Archeologica della Toscana”). Messrs. Renzo Giacchetti, Paolo Graziani, Mrs. Manuela Nistri and Mrs. Marida Risaliti respectively.