The Project L’Arte racconta, funded by the Calabria Region (PAC 2014-2020 Action 6.7.1 – Public Notice for the selection and funding of interventions for the enhancement of the system of cultural heritage, for the qualification and strengthening of the current cultural offer present in Calabria. Annuality 2019 – Action 2 Strengthening of the museum system) gave ‘voice’ to the artworks kept in the Cathedral of Maria SS.Assunta, both outside (statue of St. Paul by Francesco Jerace, etc.) and inside (funerary monuments of the sixteenth-seventeenth century, stained glass windows, paintings, etc.), and in the Diocesan Museum (paintings, sculptures, sacred jewelry and liturgical fabrics). Each work was associated with a character, chosen from among the protagonists of the history of Christianity (saints, biblical characters) and of the local Church (bishops, artists), prominent personalities but also anonymous men and women, chosen to represent a category (the devout, the commoner, etc.); in one case even a natural element (fire). For each character, a high quality audio clip was recorded in the studio in which a professional actor recounts in the first person, in a direct and captivating style, the story of the character in relation to specific historical episodes of the city and the local Church, or dramatizations of key moments in the past (such as, for example, the coming of St. Paul to Reggio and the prodigy of the burning column, the earthquake of 1908, etc.).
As part of the project from April 26 to August 17 was set up, moreover, the Exhibition Icons of the Renaissance: from marble to digital that has exposed three valuable sacred sculptures in marble dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from the diocesan territory, in particular from the sites of Orti Inferiore, Cataforio and Vito Inferiore.
The project L’Arte racconta aims the goal of enhancing the historical and artistic heritage of the Archdiocese of Reggio Calabria through the creation of a single virtual container that can better highlight the relationships in an ideal interactive continuum between works, artists, people and historical periods, aims to break down the barriers of access (physical, logistical and / or cultural), based on the virtuous mechanism of ‘widespread culture’, understood as a shared value and identity of an entire community; through the absolutely free fruition of the audio clips allowed, by means of the App, in some places outside the Diocesan Museum (Cathedral, churchyard and interior), it intends to capture the attention of a new and different public from the traditional one, inducing it to visit not only multimedia but in presence of the permanent collections of the Diocesan Museum.
The realization of the project “L’Arte racconta” involved the contribution of different and qualified professionals, most of which are already present among the partners who have collaborated in its realization: Calabria Formazione, Officina dell’Arte, Conservatory of Music “Francesco Cilea” and the parishes Santa Maria di Loreto in Orti Inferiore, San Giuseppe and SS. Salvatore in Cataforio and San Nicola di Bari in Vito Inferiore.
The Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, the Municipality of Reggio Calabria, the Ministry of Culture (MIC), the Regional Secretariat for Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Calabria MIC, the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Reggio Calabria and Vibo MIC and the Association of Italian Ecclesiastical Museums (AMEI), recognized their patronage to the project L’Arte racconta.