Did we ever think we could visit the Vatican Museums without queuing for a minute at the entrance? Or the Uffizi in Florence or the Hermitage of St Petersburg? No. Let's be honest, we never would have thought so. From one day to the next, due to the health emergency caused by the pandemic from Coronavirus, the world's most important museums have seen the 100% loss of visitor flow. A situation that has forced many in the art world to rethink theproposed offer and the current habits of the contemporary art system. From a physical closure we moved, thanks to tools that each museum already had in its offer, to the largest collective and free opening that the art world has ever experienced: virtual tours.
Travel serves our life to get away from the everyday, to get to know and explore new places, to visit distant cities and museums. Our enemy has always been time, perhaps not always enough to admire collections and works of art that would deserve whole days of religious contemplation. The opportunity is therefore to turn a dramatic situation into a sustainable opportunity for the many museums internationalalready equipped with virtual tours, who took the opportunity to digitise part of their collectionsso that they can be visited free of charge and from the comfort of home. Objective? To maintain relations with the public and, why not, to intercept sections of the population that would never be able to afford a trip to Paris, London, Moscow or Rome. A tour of the Capitoline Museums, with the possibility of seeing the catalogue of works and offering a tour of the Sistine Chapel in complete tranquillity, even several times a day. We move on to Florence, to visit the Uffizi Museum where we can take specific exhibition routes, with works in high definition and clearly visible captions. Worthy of note is the Story Factory, where podcasts narrate the collections in the voice of selected experts. Naples, Milan and Turin also show all their splendour. The Neapolitan city hosts one of Italy's most beautiful museums, the Capodimonte Museum. With its splendid forest, which can be visited online, and the publication of works from its precious Annibale Carracci collection, not forgetting the contemporary art and decorative arts section or the splendid corridors of the Bourbon Palace. Let's go to Milan where the Pinacoteca di Brera offers a virtual tour of all its rooms and permanent collections. We also point out the Milan Museum of Science and Technology which tells the 'backstage' and secrets of the museum, with daily special content on social channels.
Moving on to Turin, we have the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful experience of the Egyptian Museum, which can be visited entirely online and which for the occasion has extended the exhibition 'Invisible Archaeology', which can be visited via a special virtual tour.
Leaving Italy, we can travel through Paris visiting the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsayor land in Lon
dra and consult the rich, up-to-date database of works in the British Museum and the National Gallery, or in Spain by visiting the Dali Theatre-Museum at the Prado in Madridor the Reina Sofia looking at Picasso's masterpiece Guernica, just as we would if we were really there. We fly overseas, to New York, where Metropolitan and Guggenheim among others offer their huge online catalogue and truly accurate virtual tours. We close our world tour with one of the absolute gems of world art. L 'Saint Petersburg Hermitagethree million works including paintings, coins, sculptures, furniture and objects, 374 rooms covering 50,000 square metres of exhibition space, 24 km of total visitor route. The history of the most superb collection of paintings in the world, totally virtual, in 4K and now also implemented in Italian.
So, let's stay at home and enjoy the world.
