Background
Clusone, a hilltop town in Italy's Val Seriana known as one of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy, has long centred its cultural identity on the Fanzago Planetary Clock, a 1583 mechanical masterpiece by Pietro Fanzago that still operates with much of its original mechanism on the south facade of the Palazzo Comunale. The town also houses the MAT (Museo Arte Tempo), the Oratorio dei Disciplini with its 15th-century Triumph of Death and Dance of the Dead fresco, and a network of churches and palazzi that draw cultural tourism into the Bergamo Alps.
The deployment
The Comune di Clusone has introduced branded cardboard VR headsets, sold at approximately EUR 13 through the Visit Clusone infopoint in Piazza dell'Orologio. Visitors slot a personal smartphone into the cardboard shell, scan a QR code at each waypoint, and enter a smartphone-driven 3DoF virtual reality tour of the town's principal landmarks. The experience runs on a WebXR-style browser delivery (no app install) and pairs the viewer with content already deployed across the qrtour.it/clusone site network, where individual landmark pages reference the VRCity virtual-city experience.
Hardware and software
- Cardboard headset shell with stereoscopic lenses, branded for Clusone, holding a user-supplied smartphone
- WebXR-delivered 360 panorama tour of approximately 10 waypoints across the historic centre
- Real-time 3D reconstructions of selected interiors and the Fanzago clock mechanism
- E-learning quiz overlays aimed at school groups
- Audio guides in Italian and English, plus Italian Sign Language video guides for accessibility
The technology stack is supplied by Skylab Studios, a Tarquinia-based visual communications studio (founded 1998) whose QrTour and VRCity products power similar deployments across more than 150 Italian municipalities and several major museums including Centrale Montemartini and the Musei Capitolini in Rome.
Use cases
- Cultural tourism preview for visitors planning an in-person trip to Val Seriana
- Classroom and workshop use for schools, with quiz-based assessment
- Accessibility for people with reduced mobility or unable to visit the historic centre's stair-laden interiors
- Promotional collateral for trade fairs and tourism events
Funding and context
The project sits inside the municipality's broader inclusive-tourism strategy and is supported by Italy's PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza) under the Itinerari culturali inclusivi (Inclusive Cultural Itineraries) intervention M5C3 I.1.1.1, financed by the European Union's NextGenerationEU programme. The Comune's official website explicitly notes that the Fanzago clock's internal mechanism, otherwise reachable only via stairs, is now viewable through the VR reconstruction as a result of this funding.
Pricing and availability
The cardboard viewers retail at approximately EUR 13 at the Visit Clusone infopoint and are also distributed at trade fairs, promotional events and educational sessions.
