The Opificio delle Pietre Dure has a new website

TheOpificio delle Pietre Dure is getting a new website. The old pioneering site is being retired, and since eri those who click on www.opificiodellepietredure.cultura.gov.it (but also on www.opificiodellepietredure.it, the usual URL for the OPD’s institutional site) will find a totally renewed home page and content. The new site, created by Net7 S.r.l. in accordance with Agid’s national guidelines and international recommendations on accessibility, security and website design, was designed with a long four-handed work with the OPD, in order to better identify and communicate the complexity and peculiarities of the historical and multifaceted Institute.

The process of renewing the Opificio’s image and rebranding was started by previous Superintendent Marco Ciatti with a modern revision of the historic logo, and continued with determination by Emanuela Daffra, taking into account the very fast changing technology and regulations, including on the information security front, as well as the interconnection with the various social channels.

The site is organized into three main areas. The first, "Conservation and Research, " illustrates the Opificio as a national center of expertise in the conservation and restoration of works of art, of which it takes care of both the operational aspects and the technical-scientific and art-historical research in the field, accompanying it with a tight series of publications. To this area refer the restoration laboratories, differentiated by material, the scientific research laboratories and the sector dedicated to diagnostics. The second compartment is reserved for Training. The SAFS - School of Higher Education and Study of the Opificio offers multidisciplinary training at the university level. Finally, the Museum of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure.

“The news is in its own way historic, because ’to retire,’” explains Emanuela Daffra, Superintendent of the Florentine Opificio, “is one of the ’oldest’ sites in the world of museums and superintendencies. The one that was active at the Opificio until now is one of the prototype sites of a historic, impressive project wanted by the Ministry of Culture to equip all peripheral offices with an institutional website. It dates back to 2008 and bears witness to one of the pilot applications of the CMS Musei&Web, later proposed to all central and peripheral institutions of the Ministry in open source.”

“In the public administration, but also in the private sector, there were few at the time who fully understood the use and potential of the Web. In the case of the Opificio,” recounts Maria Emilia Masci, who followed the delicate transformation step by step, “the site assumed, in fact, the characteristics and functions of an enormous, precious archive that in fifteen years of life has accumulated an impressive amount of documents, reports, thousands of images. During this period, a very long time for a website, it has been adding pages to pages, as one would precisely do with a paper archive. Today, this authentic mine constitutes a digital historical archive that for internal use has been ”staticalized“ and archived at the Opificio, and from which reworked and structured content has already been partly drawn, especially with regard to the documentation of the restorations carried out by the Opificio, which will therefore be more easily usable and searchable on the new site.”

“The urgency of presenting ourselves on the web with a truly usable and enjoyable showcase,” emphasizes Superintendent Daffra, “has prompted us to speed up the time it takes to put the Italian-language version online only. It is quite clear that for an institution of prestige and international relations as ours is, the English version is just as vital. We are working on it with the aim of offering not so much, or not only, a slavish translation of the Italian texts but a version of them targeted to a non-Italian-centric audience. We were faced with the issue of complexity, first of all. The Opificio is the combination of many sectors, skills and functions. Of us the general public knows mainly, if not exclusively, the prominent international relevance in the field of restoration. While identifiable, this is only one of several of our excellences. The new site, which is structured around three macro areas, gives a limpid account of this.”

“What is now a modern research and training center specializing in restoration and conservation,” Daffra concludes, “is a direct offshoot of the artistic manufacture founded in 1588 by Ferdinando I de’ Medici for working semi-precious stones. The collection of works, from the prestigious collection of the Medici and Lorraine families, clearly outlines the path of the artistic manufacture through three centuries of history. So many activities, in short, one soul: preserving beauty and history, teaching how to do it, transmitting the message.”

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure has a new website

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