Parma's treasures are now online for virtual tours on Google Arts & Culture

The wonders of Parma become explorable on the web thanks to Google Arts & Culture, which opens the doors to the city’s treasures on the occasion of Parma Italian Capital of Culture 2020 + 21. There are four thematic routes launched on the platform, and they are dedicated to art, music, food culture and crafts. All this with more than 17 thousand images including museums and collections and as many as 30 digitized places with Street View of the city, featured on the platform.

Thanks to the collaboration between the City of Parma and Google Arts & Culture, the ducal city thus lands in a special virtual space, the Google Arts & Culture platform, conceived by the Google Cultural Institute, where it is possible to explore treasures, stories, and wealth of knowledge involving 2 thousand cultural institutions from 80 countries around the world, making culture accessible to anyone. Available on the Web from laptops and mobile devices, or via the app for iOS and Android, the platform is designed as a place to explore and savor art and culture online.

The outcome of the project, which the City of Parma joined for free, is the result of a team effort that brought online the work of 33 institutional partners from Parma and the Province. Following the four strands Art, Music, Food Culture, and Crafts, it is possible to discover thousands of works, music archives, and visit digitized places with some of Google’s most innovative technologies. For example, it is possible to see for the first time in virtual mode Correggio’s 27-meter-high dome (inside the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista) with all its details. This was made possible by a very precise digitization technique that allows the details of the dome and its frescoes to be faithfully captured. Again, Parmigianino’sTurkish Slave can be seen up close, thus uncovering the enigmatic face of the woman portrayed.Thanks to the Art Camera tool, the Google Arts & Culture experience faithfully brings back more than 200 works by international artists such as Picasso, Francis Bacon, Goya, Monet, and Tiziano Vecellio but also by Italian artists including Ligabue, De Chirico, Boccioni, Filippo Lippi, and Parmigianino. Among the selection of art projects is the Labirinto della Masone, the largest labyrinth in the world and created by the dream and visionary mind of Franco Maria Ricci. And then again the Duomo and Baptistery, the Complesso della Pilotta, and the Rocca Meli Lupi di Soragna. Opera fans can immerse themselves in a collection of 11,000 stage photographs, sketches and posters from the newly digitized Casa della Musica archive. There are several museums online aimed at music lovers, with the goal of bringing the history of acoustics and sound reproduction to anyone who wants it. As for food and wine, there are also the Barilla Historical Archives, the Pasta Museum, the Tomato Museum and many others. Through these exhibits, it is possible to travel through the twentieth century discovering the evolution of pasta over time until today, the use of tomato, Parmesan cheese and other local products. The journey into the beauty of Parma does not end here.

The City of Parma has enthusiastically joined Google Arts & Culture’s request for collaboration, and is now ready to open its doors to the world thanks to digital. “Parma is a city of great cultural significance whose beauty will also be appreciated online,” said Lucia Borgonzoni, undersecretary for culture, at the presentation of the City of Parma and Google Arts & Culture. “Named Italian Capital of Culture for 2020/2021 in the midst of a pandemic, Parma is now ready to showcase its rich heritage by opening up to digital. Indeed, I consider commendable the extraordinary work done by a community that had to stop a busy calendar of events in presence, restarting today stronger than before, also through digital. The mission of the City of Parma and Google Arts & Culture, is in line with that of the MiC: that is, to make Italian culture accessible to anyone, anywhere. And that’s why we too as a Ministry,” Borgonzoni concludes, "believe it is our duty to invest more and more in digitization, relaunching not only the artistic wonders of big cities, but also of small villages, making them appreciate sometimes unknown riches that are worth telling and that the whole world envies us.

The institutional partners involved in the project, featured within the online exhibition, are. Academia Gastronomica Barilla, APE Parma Museo, Barilla Historical Archives, Casa della Musica, Casa Natale e Teatro Giuseppe Verdi, Castello dei Burattini - Museo Giordano Ferrari, Collezione Barilla D’Arte Moderna, Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta, Complesso di San Giovanni Evangelista, Fabbriceria della Cattedrale, Fondazione Cariparma - Palazzo Bossi Bocchi, Fondazione Magnani-Rocca, Fondazione Museo Ettore Guatelli, Fondazione Museo Glauco Lombardi, Fondazione Teatro Regio, Labirinto della Masone, Museo Casa Barezzi, Museo d’arte cinese ed etnografico, Culatello di Zibello Museum, Fidenza Cathedral Museum, Parmigiano Reggiano Museum, Tomato Museum, Parma Ham Museum, Felino Salami Museum, Wine Museum, Pasta Museum, Renata Tebaldi Museum, Palazzo Ducale del Giardino, Stuard Picture Gallery, Reggia di Colorno, Rocca Meli Lupi di Soragna, Rocca Sanvitale di Fontanellato, University Museum System of Parma.

Parma's treasures are now online for virtual tours on Google Arts & Culture

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