The first 4D virtual museum comes into being on the sites that are the symbols of the Italian cultural heritage. Promoted by the Foreign Ministry and supported by the Ministry of Culture, the prototype of the “Virtual Voyage through the Renaissance and the Renaissances of the Italian Museum” was presented yesterday, December 14, at the University La Sapienza in Rome, during the high level international seminar entitled “Cultural Heritage: from the midst of war to the brink of peace”, which will conclude tomorrow and is organized by the Italian university in collaboration with McGill University in Montreal.
The virtual museum – with artistic direction by Sergio Iovino – was established with the goal of increasing the general awareness that it is necessary to start anew from our history and our common cultural roots to meet the complex challenges of the present. It is a message made more urgent than ever, in view of the collapse of so many of our certainties caused by the pandemic, but also thinking of the scenes of war, where the destruction of a country’s heritage becomes the means to cancel the cultural identity of an entire population. The idea of the organizers is to make the prototype of the museum available to cultural institutions and universities, in Italy but elsewhere as well.
The exhibition consists of four “rooms” that can be viewed at 360 degrees with VR glasses to tour Castel Del Monte in Puglia, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and the Medici Chapels in Florence, the Historical Center of Rome with the Ara Pacis and the Mausoleum of Augustus, and Venice with its Lagoon and the Grand Canal, Palazzo Mocenigo, the Basilica del Redentore and the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute: extraordinary places not only for their beauty but also for their ability to represent and convey the values of civility to which all mankind is intimately linked. In the Virtual Museum it will also be possible to experience a situation in augmented reality: after watching the bombing and destruction of the fortress of Castel del Monte, the viewer, rather than remaining detached, can pick up a brick with his or her own hands and participate directly in the reconstruction, admiring the rebirth of the historic architecture.
“We chose to start from Italy because there are 57 UNESCO sites in the country, and because Rome, Florence, Venice and Castel del Monte are symbols of renaissances – says Giulia Parenti, curator of the project – We want people to understand that the cultural heritage is not just something beautiful, but something that contains all the essential references for which our identity has developed as it has. We really hope this pilot project can have future developments and be replicated, not only in Italy but also abroad”.
