The Borghese Gallery in Rome presents Glances Beyond Time, a special project that will feature special openings until Feb. 27, 2026 to offer visitors animmersive visitor experience. The initiative was created with the aim of renewing the way of looking at the works, environments and history of one of Italy’s most celebrated cultural heritage sites.
Through the use of innovative technologies, the initiative will guide the public along a path that combines art, history and innovation, allowing them to retrace the transformations of the Borghese Gallery over the centuries. The use of augmented reality makes it possible to bring out the different historical phases of the museum, reconstructing atmospheres, colors and arrangements that have been lost today and making the evolution of the spaces and collections over time perceptible.
The path will also offer the opportunity to virtually view works that were once part of the collection, expanding the understanding of the museum’s historical events. Among them, the famous Gladiator, currently housed in the Louvre, is digitally reinserted in its original context, allowing us to grasp its function within the historical setting and the symbolic value it had in defining the identity of the Borghese collection.
The initiative stems from the desire to expand the ways in which the museum can be visited, to make it increasingly accessible and to promote a direct, conscious and participatory relationship between the visitor and the works, between the historical dimension and the contemporary gaze. The extraordinary openings are thus configured as an opportunity to experience a more intimate and attentive encounter with the collection. The immersive visit develops as a continuous dialogue, capable of interweaving narrative, in-depth study and sensory stimuli, inviting new interpretations of the masterpieces and museum spaces. The experience is designed to restore the complexity of the works through a clear, accessible and inclusive language suitable for different audiences. The project also includes a virtual reality introduction dedicated to the history of the Borghese Gallery, accompanying visitors from its seventeenth-century origins to the present. Through an immersive narrative, the formation of the collection, the central role of the Borghese family, the architectural and museographic transformations and the gradual transition to a public museum will be traced, restoring the sense of its evolution and cultural value over time.
Looks beyond time is part of a broader path of research and enhancement promoted by the Borghese Gallery, oriented to the experimentation of new forms of cultural mediation capable of combining scientific rigor and public involvement, tradition and innovation. In this framework, virtual and augmented reality is not used as a simple technological support, but as a critical tool to stimulate a conscious reflection on the time of art, its stratifications and its ability to dialogue with the present. In this way, the project aims to contribute to strengthening the idea of the museum as a dynamic space open to experimentation, in which knowledge arises from direct experience and relationship.
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| Borghese Gallery launches immersive visitor experiences with augmented reality |
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