Museums and exhibitions discover virtual tours. Here are which ones can be visited from home with 360-degree tours

If we wanted to find a positive effect that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused to the world of museums (of course: the current situation has nothing positive and is horrible, but that does not detract from the fact that in this pandemonium we can also discover something good between the folds), we could say that the coronavirus has prompted numerous Italian museums (and numerous exhibitions) to discover virtual tours: if before the pandemic there were few museums that offered the possibility of a “visit from home” between the halls through 360-degree virtual tours, now the current situation has led many to activate the change at a very fast pace (the coronavirus after all has accelerated processes that, at normal things, would have taken much longer to be brought to a conclusion or even simply started, and among these processes is the digitization of museums).

Tours are valuable because they allow one to have a small experience of the museum (which, however, will never be a substitute) from home, from one’s couch, and they become all the more important for exhibitions, which are lost once the closing day arrives: the virtual tour of the exhibition allows one to preserve memory of the exhibition with one more tool and to expand sine die its closure, at least ideally.

Museum virtual tours all work in roughly the same way: 360-degree photographs that can be navigated using a special dashboard that allows you to virtually move around the halls. Some allow enlargements to very high levels, with exceptional photographic quality, still others also provide explanatory panels that guide the visitor through the halls and among the works, there are those that allow the works to be enlarged with high-resolution photographs, and there are ancche museums that provide a map to allow one to move more easily among the halls.

Let’s look at some of the museums, exhibitions, and sites that offer this option (some have been offering it for some time, while others have launched the tour a few days or for just a few hours). Let’s start, to pay homage to Raphael’s 500th anniversary, with the House of Raphael in Urbino, and continue with the Uffizi, the Blue Palace in Pisa, the Vatican Museums, the Royal Palace in Turin, the National Museum of Abruzzo, the National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari, Calif, the National Archaeological Museum of Altamura, the Birthplace of Gabriele D’Annunzio in Pescara, the National Archaeological Museum of Venice, the Museum of Palazzo Grimani in Venice, the Museum of Oriental Art in Venice, the Ducal Castle of Agliè, the Baths of Caracalla, the Norman-Swabian Castle of Gioia del Colle, the Swabian Castle of Bari, that of Trani, the National Museum of Egnatia, the Datini Museum of Prato, the Archaeological Park of Castelleone di Suasa, and the Archaeological Museum of Calatia.

Many museums, for their virtual tours, have decided to take advantage of the Google Arts & Culture system. This is the case of the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia, the MIC - International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the Colosseum, the National Museum of Capodimonte, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, the Reggia di Venaria Reale, the MANN in Naples, the Civic Museums of Venice, the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum, the National Roman Museum, the National Archaeological Museum in Ferrara, the MAXXI in Rome, Castel del Monte, and the Civic Museums of Rome.

As for exhibitions, for now there are virtual tours to explore the major Guercino exhibition in Cento and the Invisible Archaeology exhibition at the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

Coming out of museums and exhibitions, there are virtual experiences at the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, the Carlo Felice Theater in Genoa, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Quirinale Library, the Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome, theRomanAmphitheater inAncona, theamphitheater in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, the Cestia Pyramid, and the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella.

In short, there is no shortage of offerings and it is growing day by day: all you have to do is select the museum and... travel with your own device.

Museums and exhibitions discover virtual tours. Here are which ones can be visited from home with 360-degree tours

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