COMUNICARE I BENI CULTURALI: ICT COME STRUMENTI DI VALORIZZAZIONE E INNALZAMENTO DELL’ACCESSIBILITÀ AL PATRIMONIO. IL CASO STUDIO DI AQUILEIA

In recent years and in line with the goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy, enhancing cultural heritage has undergone a radical change, shifting the emphasis from objects to the capacity of understanding by users. Therefore, correctly communicating cultural heritage becomes relevant, especially in an era where communication is often confused with marketing. Communication apparatus must effectively transmit the values of heritage in the widest possible sense, recognizing that Interpretation (Principle 3 of ICOM Charter on the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites) should explore the significance of a site in its multi-faceted historical, political, spiritual and artistic contest. At the same time, it is fundamental to widen the visitors’ audience through products and services aimed at heterogeneous groups of users, based on the analysis of visitor and non-visitors’ profiles, in line with the principles of Universal Design. As MiBACT suggests with the Guidelines for communication in museums, the driving questions for heritage communication projects are: Who to communicate? What to communicate? Where to communicate? How to communicate? Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) can effectively contribute to raise the accessibility of cultural heritage better promoting it to a wider range of different users. It is necessary to overcome the purely compensatory use of ICTs, but rather to promote a broader vision of policy making and strategic actions: physical, cognitive, sensorial and semiotic accessibility must be taken into account in a holistic strategy for heritage conservation. This paper will present the multidisciplinary VIP-FVG research, which starts by considering Accessibility and Inclusion as driver for an integrated approach to the enhancement and extended use of the historical and cultural heritage. The research purpose is to investigate the potentialities related to the communicability of the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia (which architectural development started in 313 AD) to start a trial aimed to achieve quality improvement of the visit through a project that integrates the adoption of ICT. The introduction of ICT in cultural communication allows to better promote knowledge and increase accessibility, especially where the overcoming of some physical barriers is difficult due to problems related to the presence of restricted spaces. How to integrate a virtual museum and a tangible heritage? What tools can be adopted to facilitate access to cultural heritage, following the Design for all principles? How to measure the results?