AETERNA MENTE
The new video installation at Palazzo Maffei
At Palazzo Maffei Casa Museo, since Saturday, February 15, Aeterna Mente has been open to the public: an interactive video installation dedicated to the history of Palazzo Maffei. An immersive journey created by the camerAnebbia studio, where works of art, architecture, and archival documents form a surreal landscape to explore, discovering the palace and the collection it holds.
A story that spans centuries and expands to the events of the city, in an interactive narrative where the visitor, from a spectator, becomes an actor in the digital stage space.
With simple gestures on a touchscreen, historical images come to life like dioramas, original structures emerge from Roman ruins, frescoes turn into an infinite sky to explore, ancient maps of Verona become navigable territories. At the same time, an immersive projection amplifies the navigation, creating a shared visual scenario.
High-resolution digitalizations and photogrammetric surveys allow the consultation of historical documents, observing in detail architectural and pictorial elements, making them accessible and enjoyable with a playful approach.
The installation is organized into chronological chapters that trace the history of Verona and the building. It begins with the origins of Roman Verona, continues with medieval Verona, the 15th and 16th centuries with the construction of the palace on the remains of the Capitolium; then the 18th century and the following century, periods to which the mural paintings of the noble floors belong. The path concludes with an excursus on the 20th century, up to the present day.
Aeterna Mente made possible the digitization of historically and artistically significant works such as the Raterian iconography provided by the Fondazione Capitolare di Verona and the Iconography of Verona. The rhythm of the anonymous Pipinian vulgarized, commented, and defended (1773), provided by the Academy of Agriculture, Sciences, and Letters of Verona; some engravings from the volume Antiquitatum Veronensium Libri VIII by the ecclesiastic Onofrio Panvinio (1530–1568), preserved in the Carlon Collection, in which it is evident that at that time Palazzo Maffei was not yet present in the city center; 18th-century engravings by the German merchant and botanist Johann Christoph Volkamer, who also depicts the hanging garden built by the Maffei family on the terrace that crowns the building.
Visitors will be able to “enter” the works, view the subjects and details depicted from different angles, and have the opportunity to discover what the Roman forum of Verona looked like and the transformations of the area through three-dimensional reconstructions, which for the first time allow an accurate understanding of the position of Palazzo Maffei in relation to the buildings of the Roman era.
Come and discover the new permanent installation at Palazzo Maffei!
The digital environment was created with the support of the PNRR – the “TOCC” incentive, financed by the European Union under the Next Generation EU framework, with reference to the project Orizzonti digitali a Palazzo Maffei Casa Museo.