The experience
Assicurazioni Generali has created an immersive virtual-reality experience, "Il futuro dove tutto è iniziato" ("The future where it all began"), that lets visitors to its Historical Archive travel back to Trieste in 1831, the year the company was founded. Wearing a VR headset, the viewer surveys the city from above — as if aboard a drone — then descends past the sailing ships moored along the Canal Grande, a testament to Trieste's booming global trade, and enters Palazzo Carciotti to witness the city's leading figures sign the deed that created Assicurazioni Generali on 26 December 1831.
A reconstructed city
The roughly five-minute short film rebuilds Trieste's landmark sites — from the Canal Grande to Palazzo Carciotti — with enough precision to study the original architecture, the bustling mercantile activity, and the figures who animated what was then the busiest port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, following a neoclassical route through the period city.
Production
The experience was designed with Prodigys Technology, with creative support from Fantastificio, editorial advice from Acrobatik, and technical assistance from Generali's head-office IT services. It forms part of the digital programme of the Archivio Storico Generali, whose holdings span more than 10 linear kilometres of documents, photographs, posters and objects tracing two centuries of European history.
Where and when
The VR experience debuted on 5 June 2026 during Archivissima, the Italian festival promoting archival heritage, whose 2026 edition took the theme "Quello che non c'è" ("What is not there"). It is shown at Palazzo Berlam — the "red skyscraper" at the meeting point of the Canal Grande and Trieste's seafront — which houses the Historical Archive. Generali also runs guided physical tours of landmark sites in its Trieste history, including the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi, the Palazzo della Borsa and Palazzo Carciotti.
