IT and Museums: Ancient artifacts and sculptures of the Uffizi Gallery go online

As a result of a collaboration between Indiana University (Indiana, the USA) and the Uffizi Gallery (Florence, Italy), it's now possible to view some of the world's most admired ancient artifacts and sculptures in 3D without traveling overseas. A newly launched website currently contains over 300 digitized sculptures and fragments from the collection.

The joint project was announced in May 2016. In summer 2018, the IU team digitized 61 statues in the Uffizi and in the Villa Corsini, the complex where the Uffizi stores works of ancient art not on display in the galleries.

The project aims to digitize the complete collection of Greek and Roman sculpture in the Uffizi, Pitti Palace, and Boboli Gardens. Largely assembled by the Medici from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the statues include works of exceptional interest to students of Greek and Roman art. The digitization project also includes training IU informatics and art history students in the techniques of 3D data capture, digital modeling and interactive online publication. 

IU President Michael A. McRobbie noted that the collection of classical antiquities can be viewed and studied by scholars, museum professionals, students and the general public. Halfway through the project the team is on target to finish the job, as foreseen, in 2020.

The Uffizi Gallery, adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in central Florence, houses some of the world's finest masterpieces, including works by Botticelli, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian. It is among the most visited museums in Italy, with more than 1.5 million visitors each year.