The cortona heritage project: Digital applications in education to architectural and archaeological heritage

Abstract

The paper presents the first results of the Cortona Heritage Project, which takes the opportunity to use the techniques of Virtual heritage to implementing concrete and innovative modes making the very rich cultural heritage of ancient Tuscan cities accessible for more people and engaging new publics by promoting its knowledge among young generations. The project includes some digital applications aimed at valorisation conceived for the adoption of smart forms of complementry education to the architectural and archaeological heritage of Cortona, made of architecture, archaeology, art; despite Cortona is already a city characterized by a very tourism developed in quantitative terms then to improve more in terms of quality of the visit. Cortona Heritage is therefore set on three following axes. Enhancing the cultural heritage of the city by favouring a simultaneously deeper and smart knowledge, promoting slow mode of visit to already too much abundant streams of tourists streams, overcoming the concentration of people only in the historical centre enlarging the area of interest to the newly established archaeological park. The project was founded in 2017 in the context of the collaboration between the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence and the Municipality of Cortona (Tuscany, Italy) and foresees three years of didactics and research activities.