THE “MARCHESATO DI SALUZZO” PROJECT: AN OPENSOURCE BASED WEB/GIS 
FOR HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL RESEARCH, CONSERVATION AND 
VALORIZATION 
E. Agosto ( ^, A. Cosenza^, F. Rinaudo (+) 
n Dipartimento di Georisorse e Territorio, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy 
email: eros.agosto@polito.it. antonio.cosenza@polito.it. fu1vio.rinaudo@polito.it 
KEY WORDS: GIS, Internet/Web, Cultural Heritage, OpenSource, Multidiscipline, Archeology, History, Valorization 
ABSTRACT: 
The creation of a management and analysis instrument of a territorial object, in order to valorize its historical, cultural and artistic 
properties, makes it necessary to read the land itself, considering many points of view. A general investigation must be carried out, 
that involves different scientific and humanistic fields, and which brings this different knowledge together in one tool: a Geographic 
Information System (GIS). 
The World Wide Web is proving to be a useful way of sharing this kind of spatial data. 
The first and undeniable advantage of using Internet tecnology to publish GIS data consists in the simplicity and economy of the 
implementation. 
Users who access GIS resources, shared using a Web server and published on a specific Web site, no longer need particular 
hardware configurations or software knowledge: it is sufficient to connect to the WWW, and use a traditional Web browser, possibly 
with some extensions (for example: plug-in, usually delivered together with server software). 
However, to make this solution competitive with a traditional one, (directly using GIS sotware compatible with data structure), when 
a GIS is published on-line the user should be able to: 
• extract information and descriptive data from the database related to the graphical base 
• visualize cartographic data in the correct scale 
• correlate graphical features to alfanumeric ones 
• use standard HTML tools, being sure of a full integration with hypertextual documents. 
This paper deals with the setting up of a complex Web/GIS that is completely based on Open Source tecnology. The aim of the work 
is to show how these tecnologies can be exploited to create low-cost products, that can be customized according to the users’ 
requirements. 
Althought the reduction in cost of the commercial products has led to a remarkable increase in the spread of this sofware, the Open 
Source Web GIS is a valid alternative, if one also considers the chance of undestanding the algorithms that have been implemented. 
The case under study refers to the realization of a spatial infrastructure of historical and artistic data concerning the “Marchesato di 
Saluzzo” (CN), an area situated in the north-west of Italy, which in the Middle Ages was under the rule of Marchesi di Saluzzo. 
1. PUBLISHING GIS ON INTERNET 
When dealing with the problem of preserving and valorizing the 
cultural heritage of the land, it is very important to collect a 
great variety of information, in order to construct a data base. 
Public administrators can use it to support the decisions they 
have to make and to give a proper direction to their policies. It 
is evident that this work has to involve different levels of 
competence. As a matter of fact, the land must be read taking 
into account its many aspects and dynamics, such as the mutual 
influence with the human activities. The experts in history, 
archeology, geology, botany, architecture, engineering, cultural 
anthropology and art, have to carry out their own researches 
and analyses. After such a great effort has been made, the next 
step is to integrate all these data in one efficient tool, so that not 
a single piece of information is spoilt. If one of these tools is 
developed, it is possible to carry out interdisciplinary analyses 
instead of having a partial view of a specific problem. 
Considering the aim of the project, that is the promotion of a 
particular land, it is clear that this amount of information has 
got a common substract: the land itself. In other words, all the 
information has to have more or less evident georeferenced 
aspects. This leads us to organize all the information into what 
we call a GIS. At this point, the tool we wanted to create is 
ready. The administrators have another arrow for their bow, and 
the researchers have a powerful means for their own 
speculation. But the question is: “Have we done our best in 
order to meet our starting goal?”. The tool we have designed is 
only usable on the computer where it was made. So next step 
consists in making possible to people to access this hardly-built 
tool if they need to, without forcing them to physically go 
where the tool is. We have to bring the tool to people, not vice 
versa. In this way, the project is able to score another point 
towards our goal. If we can bring the information to people, we 
put administrators and researchers in the condition of doing 
their own work, and moreover, we can transfer a great deal of 
information to common person as well. We can raise their 
awareness and improve how historical, cultural and artistic 
properties of a land are felt. It is possible to make the land more