A Virtual Museum for Flemish artworks. A digital reconstruction of Genoese collections

The work we propose in this paper is a Virtual Museum (VM) collecting the Flemish works of art which, during the XVII century, were part of the Genoese collections. One of the advantages of the virtual reality technology is the possibility to create a situation not physically realizable. Hence, our work gathers Flemish works of art linked by a common thread, scattered all over the world, making art at the disposal of everyone. Furthermore, the possibility of organizing contents in a hierarchical and interactive way allows us to provide a fruition of the conveyed information tailored to anyone\´s knowledge, trying to realize a "democratization of knowledge". The user should be provided with the possibility to customize his/her visit. In our work, we focus on two main aspects: the creation of a suitable environment; the transmission of education to the new generations. The didactic aim is obtained including a section for games, according to the serious games principle. Finally, the synergic cooperation between the figures of the art historian and the ICT engineer was required to develop a museum which is not a structure alien from its content, but a space thought to be appropriate and functional with respect to the content itself.