The new visitor route of the Historical Archive of Il Secolo XIX has been inaugurated in Genoa: a project that restores 140 years of history to the community, making them accessible through an integrated experience combining physical and digital heritage.
Promoted by Fondazione Il Secolo XIX, the project was created with the aim of protecting, enhancing and making once again accessible a unique documentary heritage: millions of pages and more than 125,000 photographs that tell the story of Genoa, Liguria and Italy.
“This archive is a home of shared memory,” says Barbara Grosso, Director General of the Foundation, “a place where every page gives voice back to entire generations. Il Secolo XIX was not just a newspaper: it was a daily witness to our lives.”
The new exhibition layout has been conceived as an immersive experience, where historical sources interact with multimedia installations and interactive devices. Alongside the consultation of original documents, the route includes digital environments that allow visitors to explore content, images and narratives dynamically, restoring complexity and depth to the history of the newspaper.
The project is based on an integrated approach that combines physical and digital dimensions, with the aim of making the archive accessible to a wide range of audiences, including scholars, journalists, students and visitors.
At the heart of the initiative is the process of digitising the entire archive, carried out in collaboration with the Digital Library of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Gruppo Panini Cultura is a project partner and contributed to the creation of the exhibition and multimedia experience, overseeing the development of content and installations that guide visitors in understanding and appreciating the Historical Archive. These range from an educational projection dedicated to the process of restoring the heritage to the public, to an installation based on an interactive table, which reinterprets journalistic work and the construction of editorial content in direct relation to the sources.
The installations are designed to interact with the digital library, creating an integrated ecosystem that connects consultation, storytelling and access to data.
The project stems from the collaboration between Fondazione Il Secolo XIX, the Italian Ministry of Culture – Directorate-General for Digitalisation, Digital Library, Regione Liguria, Comune di Genova, Camera di Commercio, GNV, Fondazione Passadore 1888, Costa Edutainment and Gruppo Panini Cultura.
It is a network of expertise that has made it possible to restore access to a heritage that represents an active tool for knowledge and for interpreting the present.
