VIED’ARTE: a web publication environment for cultural heritage knowledge. The case study of Archbishop's Palace of Pisa.

Attached to the famous Cathedral of Pisa and located at the east end of the Piazza del Duomo there is the Archbishop's Palace of Pisa. Because of its characteristics the Palace is a good case study for the VIEd'ARTE (Virtual Integrated Environment for Arts Routes Territories Exhibitions) Project’s activities concerning virtual visits. The originality of VIEd’ARTE is the availability of a comprehensive environment for all the types of web presentation models, instead of having different presentation frameworks for each type of visit: virtual geographic tours, virtual exhibitions and virtual museums, web versions of real exhibitions, virtual visit of historic buildings and churches. The web publication framework is integrated with data access mechanisms to different types of cultural objects. The implementation of the schema, named “Routes”, supports virtual geographic tours and visits to cultural heritage assets in physical sites. The virtual visit of the Archbishop’s Palace of Pisa is the testbed of the web publication scheme for the site visualization. The work shows the accomplished experience and the general use of the implemented environment.