Thursday, February 28, 2013

Papal States: The Vatican Museums Collections Online

With the Pope's resignation looming, now is an interesting time to look at what the Vatican's museums are doing online.  But first - did you know that the Vatican had an extensive museum system?  That was certainly news to me, although I guess that all the wealth and objects they've accumulated (taken?) over the centuries had to go somewhere.  And, considering that this Pope decided to get on Twitter, it makes sense for the Vatican's collections to have an online presence.  Surprisingly, for an institution that is very old and sometimes seems to be stuck in the past, the Vatican's virtual museum is quite impressive.

Unlike the Louvre, whose online museum I've written about previously, the Vatican seems to have given many of its physical collections a home on the web.  There are ten different collections that can be accessed online, and each of these collections is housed among a number of rooms.  Most rooms, in turn, have several different artifacts that can be viewed, which means that in total there are hundreds of objects to look at.  Some of the Vatican's most prominent holdings, like the frescos in the Sistine Chapel, are gathered in a "Not to Be Missed" section.

In addition, each collection, each room and each object is accompanied by text that is informative but not too long-winded (the individual objects also have their curatorial information presented).  This all adds up to a lot of beautiful images and a digestible and interesting amount of information about what and why the Vatican has all these things.

My only quibble with this virtual museum is that it's not so easy to navigate.  I suppose this has to do with how many layers it contains, and how many objects there are to work your way through.  Sometimes, though, it gets a little illogical trying to find your way around - for example, if you click on the "Virtual Visit of This Room" feature that some rooms have, all you get is a tiny, useless floor plan.

All in all, though, this online museum is pretty impressive, especially considering how old-fashioned and hidebound the Vatican often seems.  Although it makes me a little squeamish to think about how these objects were acquired, the fact remains that they are impressive artifacts and highly accessible to web audiences.  I never thought I would say this, but the Vatican seems to be one of the leaders in online museum collections.


The Vatican Museums Online Collections
Website:  mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Visite.html

Sunday, February 10, 2013

French Style: The Louvre Online Tours

The Louvre is lucky.  It's one of the most well-known and recognized museums in the world, and it's probably never hurting for visitors (or funds).  It holds the world's most famous artwork (the Mona Lisa) and it now has two satellite locations:  one in the north of France and one in Abu Dhabi.  Given all these resources and prestige, you would hope that the museum would have a phenomenal online presence, including some sort of virtual experience.  Once again, the Louvre does not disappoint - at least in quality.

The online tours here represent two galleries:  the Rotunda, which displays the museum building's history, and the Egyptian Antiquities wing.  Launching either of these tours brings you to a digital rendering of each section of the building, which you can move around in by mousing over the floor until black arrows appear or by dragging left or right over the screen.  Descriptions of each room appear in a text box below at the bottom of the screen, and although you get only a short paragraph of details, it's just the right length to inform without overwhelming.

If you browse through the items in the galleries, you'll find that some of them show an "i" when you hover over them.  This indicates that you can click on these items to display a more detailed image and some information.  The images quality is excellent, and I'm glad the museum includes curatorial information (like age, composition and dimensions) for these artifacts, although some descriptive text would be appealing to casual visitors.

These two tours are excellent and make good use of technology and the Louvre's resources, so it's puzzling that more isn't on offer.  There are ten other sections of the museum that could also be made into virtual tours.  I'm also not sure why a third tour, of the Galerie d'Apollon, was displayed on the Louvre's website but was not working (the link took me to Google's French website).

These, I suppose, are goals to reach towards - perhaps more tours are being planned for the future.  Given the Louvre's status in the museum world, they have shown an admirable effort to make at least some of their collections available to the wider world.  I hope they can fix some of the flaws in these tours, and I hope someday to be able to experience more of the museum from the comfort of my computer screen.


The Louvre Online Tours
Website:  www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne