The exhibition "The Hidden Ark. An unprecedented and close look at the Ark that preserves the remains of the Saint" was presented at the Civic Museums on Tuesday 24 January, the first event of 2023 of the rich program of celebrations planned for the 1300th anniversary years from the translation of the remains of St. Augustine from Cagliari to Pavia.

This is a project with which the Municipality of Pavia, accepting a proposal from the APS COMPVTER, the Engineering Department of the University of Pavia and the Pavia Press press and communication agency, intends to enhance and promote the precious 14th century artefact , preserved in the basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, the work of the Campionese Masters: the Ark of S. Agostino and, with it, the Pavia-Sant'Agostino combination, a true tangible and intangible heritage of our city.

The exhibition in the room of the Visconti Library will present to the public details of the Ark reproduced with the most modern technologies and according to different points of view: an unprecedented and close look to discover the Ark and grasp aspects and particularities that are difficult to see.

A fundamental contribution and at the same time a constitutive element of the exhibition is the book just published by Virginio Cantoni, Mauro Mosconi and Alessandra Setti "L'Arca di S. Agostino. Digital technology for an innovative fruition of art with the involvement of

students". The book illustrates the projects of the students of the Computer Vision course of three academic years, starting from 2017/18. The objective was to virtually model and reconstruct the Ark, to propose new forms of use of a artistic work, offering points of view that the current location of the sculpture does not allow. An equally fundamental contribution is that of Compvter, the social promotion association which has gained recognition in our territory as a space of great skills and professionalism in the field of innovation, technology and attention to the dissemination and promotion of technical-scientific training. Compvter has in fact physically created some of the objects present in the exhibition: starting from the three-dimensional modeling of Pavia 3D (largely created by former students of the course), it represented

virtual way the ark and its contents in a simple, interactive and above all easy to use way through:

- a "multimedia cube, i.e. a structure that contains medium-sized objects which, thanks to a rotating surface, can be seen at 360 degrees inside;

- a stylized representation of the Ark of Saint Augustine, created on a wooden structure that houses a "parallelepiped", thanks to which the scenes represented in the Ark can be appreciated with the precision of digital three-dimensionality (made of software, projectors and video projectors) which guarantees a notable degree of spectacularity.

Furthermore, the exhibition of so-called lenticular panels, specially reproduced bas-reliefs and - a further important aspect - tactile images is envisaged, i.e. the transposition of the lenticular prints and two bas-reliefs so that they can also be enjoyed and explored by visually impaired and blind people. .

Alongside the tactile panels, Braille panels will be displayed with the illustrative caption of the objects, activities carried out in collaboration with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired in Lombardy. The exhibition will also be enriched by

photographic, video and communication material by the press and communication agency Pavia Press which also contributed to the set-up.