During the Coronavirus crisis, Rome’s museums go online

An increasing number of world museums is allowing users stuck at home under Coronavirus lockdown to keep enjoying their cultural offer and their magnificent masterpieces by setting up “virtual tours” of their collections and their establishments.

Rome has joined enthusiastically the initiative, with Vatican City and Italy’s capital joined into bringing art online to anyone who has been forced to cancel their planned trip to the country, or is quarantined and in need of solace at this time.

An online tour of Rome’s city museums

The municipality of Rome has, so far, set up virtual tours of the Capitoline Museums, Trajan’s Market, the Ara Pacis Museum, the Museo Napoleonico (Napoleon Museum) and the Casino Nobile at Villa Torlonia. The general page with all museums participating is at this address: watch this space for updates!

Every “virtual visit” is available in Italian or English, with Adobe Flash required to operate the commands on the screen.

Want more virtual tours? Check out your social networks

Above you can see a virtual tour of the Roman Forum: it’s only one of the valuable contents available for free on YouTube, which can be explored for other cultural contents on Rome and Italy.

In addition, note that the museum system run by Rome’s City Council adheres to Google Cultural Institute’s Art Project, at this address.

It doesn’t end there: Palazzo Barberini and Palazzo Corsini, the two branches of the National Gallery of Ancient Art, have reinforced their presence on the world’ most known social networks: on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter they share mini-documentaries or insights on their collection: the same course has been chosen by the Borghese Gallery and by the Scuderie del Quirinale museum, although their contents are mainly available into Italian.

… And the Vatican Museums are not far behind

On this page you can find the virtual tour galleries offered by the Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel (well, obviously!) and Raphael’s Rooms, among others.

Other museums countrywide also participate in the scheme: among them, the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan or the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. More museums will be added in the coming weeks too, to add beauty in the lives of those affected by the Coronavirus/COVID-19 epidemic worldwide.