The birthplace where the composer Gaetano Donizetti was born in 1797 is a place of historical and cultural value. The house is a 5-storey building of which the oldest part (the rooms inhabited by the Donizetti) dates back to the 14th - 15th century and has maintained its original appearance: an ideal background for imagining everyday uses and behaviors of the past. Purchased by the Municipality of Bergamo in 1925, in 1926 the building was declared a National Monument. Since 2009, after an intervention that has made it completely accessible, Casa Natale, managed by the Donizetti Theater Foundation, has been open to the public. The visit includes access to the different areas of historical interest of the building in such a way as to give an overview of the life of the composer from Bergamo with hints to the events related to his teacher Mayr and to the theater.
To give added value to the visit, the Impronte Sonore project was created, a sound journey into the past, into the voices and noises at the times and places of little Gaetano Donizetti. By means of the recording with a binaural microphone, an engaging holophonic narration was created, capable of evoking the everyday life of a humble nineteenth-century family and immersing the listener in three-dimensional sound environments. Impronte Sonore, thanks to its peculiarity compared to a traditional audio guide, accompanies the user not through sight, but through hearing. The application allows you to customize the visit route and time. The visitor can thus freely browse the contents of the three floors of his birthplace, respectively “The house where he was born”, “The pupil and the Maestro” and “Il Teatro Donizetti”.