Nicolette Mandarano's 'Musei e media digitali' charts Italian museums' digital evolution

Nicolette Mandarano's book 'Musei e media digitali' (Carocci, 2019, 128 pp., €12) provides a rigorous survey of digital media in Italian museums, filling a taxonomic and operational gap. The volume opens with the 1994 reconstruction of Nefertari's tomb at Fondazione Memmo in Rome, marking the start of digital valorization in Italy. Mandarano argues that the non-linear development of museum-technology relations stems from a mindset that viewed technology as corrupting art's nobility. The book documents pioneering Italian museums—Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, MAXXI in Rome, MANN in Naples, and M9 in Mestre—alongside international cases like the Cooper Hewitt's pen and wallpaper collection curated by Sebastian Chan, the Brooklyn Museum's Ask app, and MoMA's audio app. It also explores intersections with the creative industry, citing Peter Greenaway's 2009 staging of Veronese's 'Wedding at Cana' and Edoardo Tresoldi's physical reconstruction at Siponto. Mandarano cites Luca Dal Pozzolo on the multiplicity of narratives. The book serves as a compass for digital cultural challenges, though its focus remains on art history museums, as noted by reviewer Maria Elena Colombo.