Uffizi, new Digital Archives online with thousands of images and an all-scholarly section

Online revolution for the Uffizi Galleries in Florence: the most visited museum in the Tuscan capital has in fact inaugurated its new Digital Archives and section dedicated to scholars, called simply “Scholars” and easily accessible from the home page of the institute’s website, www.uffizi.it. The Digital Archives are the tool that replaces the previous platforms still linked to the Polo Museale Fiorentino: they have been profoundly revised in content and form, and the services have also been revisited, particularly the integration between the databases present. The Digital Archives include the Photographic Archives and Inventories (over 600,000 images available, most of them in color, and over 300,000 artworks catalogued, with a handy search engine), the General Catalog (with 145,630 cards, divided by five institutions: Uffizi Galleries with 13,329 cards, Bargello Museums with 6,775 cards, Polo Museale della Toscana with 5,778 cards, Galleria dell’Accademia with 1,313 cards and Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the metropolitan city of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato with 118.425 cards), and the Euploos project that includes cards and images of thousands of drawings from the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Uffizi Gallery (the goal is to make the entire collection available online: 180,000 works including drawings, engravings, miniatures and photographs dating from the 14th century to the present day).

In addition, the mapping of the frescoes in the first corridor of the Uffizi Gallery will also soon be available online, and at the same time as the presentation of the new Digital Archives, the results so far of the 3D scanning of the museum’s classical statues, carried out in collaboration withIndiana University thanks to an agreement signed in 2016, were also announced.The project involves a five-year commitment to create 3D models of the more than 1,000 classical marbles in the Florentine collections at the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, and the Boboli Gardens. The results so far have been uploaded online to the “works” section, “sculptures” category, of the Uffizi website, and the full list of the campaign can also be accessed through the temporary website https://www.digitalsculpture-uffizi.org/.

The new section reserved for scholars, on the other hand, includes, as explained on the Uffizi website, everything needed “to plan a research session on the heritage of the Galleries: from the methods of access to the places of study, to the digital inventories, to the photo gallery of the collected works, with the possibility of requesting reproductions.” Scholars can then consult the photographic archive, the archive of the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints, the historical archive, the catalog of the Uffizi Library, have all the references of the offices (catalog, archives, restorations) and a notice board to stay up-to-date on what the museum has in store for scholars and researchers.

The new digital archives were created under the technical supervision of the Department of Information Technology, Digital Strategies and Cultural Promotion: the museum’s commitment is to make its entire holdings increasingly usable through digital technologies as well. A commitment that does not neglect social media either: for example, it was just a few days ago that the Gallery’s Instagram account reached 150,000 followers. “Those we are presenting today,” said Eike D. Schmidt,director of the Uffizi Galleries, “are the scientific research databases, some of which date back to the 1990s: the Uffizi at that time was among the most advanced institutions in the use of technology. We have taken these these data, added new ones, and now we are making them available to the public, specied scholars, with a new, more accessible platform. So the Uffizi Galleries are also confirming themselves as a center for research, and not just for dissemination and protection.”

Image: the Western Corridor of the Uffizi Gallery.

Uffizi, new Digital Archives online with thousands of images and an all-scholarly section

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