Starting July 10, Florence is hosting a new cultural experience dedicated to one of the absolute masterpieces of the Renaissance: the Dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Entitled Brunelleschi’s Dome - Building the Impossible, it is a virtual reality journey to discover the extraordinary architectural feat that marked the history of Western art and engineering. The initiative was created by WAY Experience, in collaboration with Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, and is part of the Masters of Renaissance program, co-produced with Slow Tour Tuscany. The common goal is the dissemination of innovative and accessible cultural content, capable of combining scientific rigor and emotional involvement.
The public will have the opportunity to experience a narrative journey lasting about ten minutes, entirely in virtual reality, through a three-dimensional environment that reproduces in detail the Florence of the 15th century. Thanks to the narrative voice of actor Antonio Palumbo and the partnership with LibriVivi, viewers will be led inside the story of the construction of the Dome, through the eyes of Brunelleschi himself. The first-person narrative alternates between autobiographical passages, technical details and anecdotes related to one of the most ambitious construction feats of the modern age.
“It is an honor to have been able to collaborate with Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore on Brunelleschi’s Dome,” says Marco Pizzoni, co-founder and CEO of WAY Experience. “This is a project with a strong innovative character that is perfectly in line with our mission: to create great immersive projects to improve the experience of visiting cultural places, broaden their target audience, increase their inclusiveness and thus generate a positive social impact. This experience between real and virtual will allow visitors to take a real journey through time to discover the history of Brunelleschi’s Dome, to experience firsthand what has so far only been told.”
“We are proud to have contributed, together with WAY Experience and the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, to the creation of this VR experience dedicated to Brunelleschi’s Dome,” says Annalisa Menconi, CEO and co-founder of Slow Tour Tuscany. “In addition to the prestige of the institution, this project represents for us a unique opportunity to finally make ’visible’ the extraordinary scope of Brunelleschi’s innovation, not only on a scientific and technical level, but also on a social and urban level, in a dialogue still alive with the city of Florence.”
“Joining this project,” says Leonardo Capanni coordinator of Digital Strategies & Data Analysis at the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, “was an important opportunity for our institution to enhance Brunelleschi’s Dome in a new key. Indeed, virtual reality allows to go beyond the traditional narrative, offering visitors an immersive journey through time and a direct encounter with Brunelleschi’s genius, enriching the cultural enjoyment of one of Florence’s icons in a conscious way.”
The experience is available at the VR space at 113-115-117 Via degli Alfani, Florence, and will be enjoyed daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Access is on a continuous basis, with a maximum capacity of 12 stations every 15 minutes. Tickets can be purchased on-site and, soon, on the Opera and WAY Experience online channels. On the opening day of July 10, access will be free and without reservation, in open day mode.
The entire virtual tour unfolds in three main settings, each reconstructed with high historical and visual accuracy. The first setting is the nave of Florence Cathedral, where viewers are introduced to the original context of the work and witness the beginning of its construction. In this stage, Brunelleschi recounts the dynamics of commissioning and the competition with Lorenzo Ghiberti for the assignment of the project. The second scene is of the drum of the dome, where the technical solutions developed by the architect, including the innovative self-supporting system, are illustrated. The scene shows workers at work, construction tools and materials used, offering an insight into the construction technologies of the time. The last setting projects viewers to the end of the work, allowing them to observe the interior of the dome already decorated by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari’s painting cycle, completed about a century after the structure was completed.
The project took more than eight months to produce and involved a team of 18 professionals, including digital artists, art historians, developers and virtual reality technicians. The realization made use of state-of-the-art software tools such as Unreal Engine 5.5, Blender, Houdini and Nuke. The content was developed in monoscopic VR 360 format, with three degrees of freedom and 5K resolution.
Scientific advice from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore ensured the historical and artistic coherence of the project. Some key visual elements, such as the stained glass windows and frescoes, were reproduced using very high definition digital images and textures provided directly by the Opera. In particular, the interior decorations of the Dome were processed from a texture of 65,536 x 8,192 pixels, while the light filtering through the stained glass windows was simulated with 80 dynamic light sources, capable of rendering the variation of natural lighting throughout the day.
The scene is animated by more than 50 Metahumans, ultra-realistic digital characters with unique traits, customized movements and historically consistent clothing. The use of these avatars contributes to the vivid atmosphere of the Renaissance construction site and reinforces the narrative component of the experience. Rounding out the picture is the original soundtrack composed by Fabio Sirna, who also did the sound design. The orchestral music was created in ambisonic format, a spatialized audio technology capable of delivering an immersive three-dimensional soundscape.
The Brunelleschi’s Dome - Building the Impossible project aims to increase awareness of the enjoyment of cultural heritage and promote inclusive dissemination of the Renaissance’s historical and artistic legacy. The virtual experience allows a wide audience, including non-specialists, to approach the architectural and technical complexity of Brunelleschi’s work. At the same time, it provides a model of cultural heritage interpretation that integrates scientific research, advanced technology, and immersive storytelling.
 |
| A virtual trip to Brunelleschi's dome with "Building the Impossible" |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.
