It is with deep sadness and grief that the family of CIPA Heritage Documentation announces the demise of Prof. Gabriele Fangi, former Geomatics Professor at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy, and former member of CIPA Executive Board. Gabriele passed away on January 18th, 2020 after a brief illness at the age of 74.

Rigorous, passionate, humble and reserved expert and scholar of photogrammetric theory, he developed original solutions to facilitate the metric documentation of cultural heritage, in particular using spherical photogrammetry. He had an outstanding contribution to Italy’s and World’s cultural heritage sector, while he worked diligently to make CIPA and heritage documentation truly a world body. He worked in many countries around the world, particularly in Syria, where he dedicated lots of his work with unparallel passion. Recently he published the book “Reviving Palmyra in Multiple Dimensions: Images, Ruins and Cultural Memory” together with Minna Silver and Ahmet Denker.

His smile, his dedication to safeguarding cultural heritage, his ability to work with different professionals in diverse situations has made him a much-respected colleague, both nationally and internationally. He was an inspiring scientist, someone to admire and envy for the way he focused and vigorously persisted in achieving his targets.

Recently, during the 27th CIPA Symposium in 2019 in Avila, Spain, we were fortunate to having heard him as an invited speaker presenting his work all these years in Syria. It happened to be his last public appearance in CIPA of a long and distinguished career.
While CIPA joins his beloved wife Silvana and his family to share the unbearable loss, we are proud to have been associated with one of the most tender colleagues we ever had in our cultural heritage documentation community.