Museums: Interactive displays at Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Victoria and Albert Museum - the museum of decorative arts and design in London has opened new Medieval and Renaissance galleries. Among the remarkable collections of treasures are delicately carved ivories, and pages from Leonardo’s famous Codex Forster manuscripts, which had been digitized for the first time. The collection also represents one the magnificent digitized Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, examining medieval courtly life and magnificent sculptures of Renaissance. The Santa Chiara Chapel (about 1494-1500) in the ‘Renaissance City’ gallery is the only Italian Renaissance chapel that can be seen outside of Italy. The University of Sussex have created an exact model replica of the interior of the church of Santa Chiara in Florence. This has been filmed to create a 3D virtual tour through the church so visitors can feel like they are stepping inside the actual church. The galleries tell the story of European art and culture from AD 300–1600; from the decline of the
Roman Empire to the end of the Renaissance period. 

Museums galleries are equipped with interactive touch screens, which allow visitors to zoom in and turn the pages of digital exposits. The interactive displays are all available in the galleries and on the V&A’s website: www.vam.ac.uk/medren.