'A digital Loggia for Raphael' project

At http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/farnesina/loggia/, you can observe at a close distance both the beautiful stories of Cupid and Psyche to enjoy, with unprecedented detail, the Fable of Apuleius, the vegetal and animals painted by Raphael and his assistants in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche in Villa Farnesina, Rome.

The digital system was designed and developed by the Visual Computing Lab of ISTI-CNR based on a critical scientific study and conservation project of the Loggia on behalf of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei to explore the fantastic frescoed ceiling in Villa Farnesina in the time of COVID-19.

The project and the pandemic

The interactive digital system initially conceived as "ordinary" programming as part of the celebrations for the fifth centenary of the death of Raffaello Sanzio (April 6 1520), has been rethought and promoted on the Web by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in synergy with the National Council of Research, during the global health emergency COVID-19 waiting to return to see live the magnificence of Villa Farnesina and the exhibitions dedicated to the great artist in the Villa.

The pandemic forced Villa Farnesina to reorganize the calendar of events and, at the same time, to implement its digital apparatus to promote knowledge of its heritage even outside its visitors.

The access numbers to the "Digital Loggia" and the numerous feedback received from scholars and traditional institutions, national and international, confirm the high level of appreciation found by the system, quoted in the well-known Italian magazine Il Giornale dell'Arte of May-June 2020 among the "136 reopenings of projects in Italy and around the world". The digital Lodge seems to represent a virtuous communication model of the artwork and its contents on the Web.

During the months of lockdown, the system found a great media promotion on the leading specialized newspapers, national and local media, social networks and the web (TG3 (17 ': 35 "), Rai Cultura, Arte Sky, Finestre sull'Arte, Magazine, Corriere della Sera, Repubblica Roma, La Nazione di Pisa, Webinar, etc.) with stimulating effects on cultural use.

The digital Loggia and the exhibitions on Raphael

The dedicated interactive system provides practical support to the two exhibitions planned to celebrate the divine painter: the "Raphael in Villa Farnesina: Galatea and Psyche" exhibition (October 6 2020 - January 6 2021) and the "Raphael and the Ancient in the Villa by Agostino Chigi" exhibition postponed to a date to be defined.

The purpose of the digital Loggia

The Fable of Cupid and Psyche, the animals and the vegetable festoons, were designed by Raphael and painted by his principal assistants (Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine), around 1518, for the homonymous Loggia in the residence of the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi on the suburban side of the Tiber. The frescoes constitute a unique document for Raphael's conception of the work and the extraordinary botanical and zoological biodiversity that converged in Rome from all over the world. In particular, the Fable is the first pictorial representation taken from Apuleius's "Metamorphoses" and will then be taken up by many posthumous artists. The festoons were a powerful tool of wonder, an evident symbol of prosperity. They had the distinction of being the first documentation of the plants just arrived in Europe after America's discovery. Simultaneously, the animals show the fauna present at the time in the Roman and non-Roman countryside only.

Therefore, the project's objective consisted in the creation of an interactive and intuitive digital system of Raphael's work and his workshop that allows access to the rich contents resulting from intense multidisciplinary research. Therefore the Digital Loggia (IT/EN) is organized in 7 sections: "Loggia", "Fable", "Festoons", "Animals", "Colors" and "R. Chalcography" allow consulting the cultural contents enriched by historical images and the results of scientific investigations, while the" Explore" section houses the 3 navigation and interactive consultation systems of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche.

The system has been designed innovatively to be able to manage a very high definition survey easily. It has been designed for a general public now familiar with virtual fruition systems based on panoramic images such as, for example, the various viewers of urban contexts. Such as Google Street View. Therefore, it is easily accessible, limits the loading times of information as much as possible and offers intuitive orientation tools throughout the navigation. The system was created on two levels of detail where the in-depth sheets allow the user to appreciate the elements at an even higher level of resolution than that of the whole vault overview.

Main external reading

• TG3 (17’:35”)
• RAI CULTURA
• ARTE SKY
• Finestre sull’Arte
• ARTE MAGAZINE
• ARTRIBUNE
• CORRIERE DELLA SERA
• CORRIERE NAZIONALE
• IL MANIFESTO
• IL GIORNALE D'ITALIA
• LA REPUBBLICA Roma
• LA NAZIONE Pisa
• THE WORLD NEWS > ITALIAN NEWS PLATFORM
• AISE.it
• Anuario TAREA 7
• WEBINAR – The Cyprus Institute, June 30 2020 (live)
• WEBINAR – Italian Cultural Institutes of the United States and Canada

References

• Gianpaolo Palma, Eliana Siotto, A digital Loggia at the time of COVID-19 in A. Sgamellotti, V. Lapenta, C. Anselmi, C. Seccaroni (eds.) Raphael in Villa Farnesina: Galatea and Psyche, Bardi Ed., Rome 2020, pp. 91-98 (ISBN 978-88-948-1057-8).