Brescia renews and enriches the digital storytelling offer by including the Castle of Brescia among its Brixia Time Machine AR tours

Cultural valorization through the multimedia language of augmented reality has seen Fondazione Brescia Musei collaborate with ARtGlass/Capitale Cultura Group since 2015.
Brixia Time Machine, the project resulting from this collaboration, has made the Brescia Museums the first museum system in Italy to use this technology in the cultural field.

In recent years the search for valorisation and innovation of Brescia’s museum sites has not stopped and thanks to the awarding of the tender by InnovaMusei – Regione Lombardia, Unioncamere Lombardia and Fondazione Cariplo, with the project “Accessible tourism and valorisation paths thanks to a new augmented reality – The Castle of Brescia and the archaeological system of Brescia Museums”, a new chapter is now available within the ARt-Glass® Experience proposals, entitled “The Castle, the weapons and the knights” – usable within the Museum of Arms “Luigi Marzoli” at the Castle of Brescia.

In this new narrative journey, the visitor is accompanied by an exceptional cicerone, Giovanni Visconti, archbishop of Milan who, together with his brother Luchino, became lord of Brescia in the 14th century.

Following the collection of weapons and armor, the technology of the Epson Moverio BT-350 smartglasses integrated with the patented ARtGlass platform highlights the traces left over the centuries by the domination of the Viscontis and the Venetians on the wall frescoes that decorate the rooms of the Mastio and brings to view the architectural remains of the church of Santo Stefano in Arce and the original appearance of the Roman temple on which the Castle of Brescia stands.

Thus, four augmented reality visit routes become available to visitors: Brixia. Archaeological Park of Roman Brescia, The Domus dell’Ortaglia and The Basilica of San Salvatore at the Museum of Santa Giulia, and finally, The Castle, the weapons and the knights at the Castle of Brescia.

In addition to the expansion of the Brixia Time Machine offer, the contribution of InnovaMusei made it possible to update each visit route and relaunch the first experience at Brixia. Archaeological park of Roman Brescia with an unpublished content dedicated to the Winged Victory. In addition to the history and iconography of the statue, Augmented Reality today reveals the technical data and images of the restoration carried out between 2018 and 2020 at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence.

Finally, by integrating a new subtitling system for the deaf and inserting elements of clarity and interactivity in the visit itinerary, the Museums of Brescia continue to develop the character of accessibility and inclusiveness of their offer towards all audiences, including vulnerable subjects with disabilities. hearing and motor disabilities.

“Brescia is the Italian capital of the narration of cultural heritage through augmented reality, this has once again been recognized by the Innovamusei system – Lombardy Region, Unioncamere Lombardia and Fondazione Cariplo”, says Antonio Scuderi, CEO of ARt-Glass® and Capital Culture Group. “Augmented reality, thanks above all to the experience gained in Brescia, which today reaches the fourth stage of this journey, is now a mature language that fits into a new dimension of storytelling, which today we call ‘mixed’. The pandemic has brought into a new dimension, in which we must find our own humanistic way that brings together the physical and the digital and allows us to be the forerunners of this new story.”