Discover the secrets of the Cathedral with the new app Duomo Milano

Exactly 60 years have passed since the entrepreneur Giovanni D’Uva, who was an enterprising nineteen year old at the time, requested a meeting with the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (future Pope St. Paul VI) to propose installing, in the Duomo, the first multilingual audio guides invented by him. Today, D’Uva, a company run by Ilaria, Giovanni’s daughter, cooperates with leading Italian museums and churches to offer interactive experiences based on video guides, mobile apps, multimedia totems, guided tours, ticket vending machines, bookshops and interpreting services for museums. This goal celebrates both the company’s 60th anniversary since its foundation, and the beginning of the fortunate and uninterrupted partnership with Veneranda Fabbricadel Duomo di Milano, which is consolidated today with the launch of the new official DUOMO MILANO app.

Veneranda Fabbrica, a historical institution established in 1387 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti to design and construct Duomo di Milano, six hundred years later still preserves and enhances the value of the Cathedral and of its treasures of faith and art, the yearly target of more than two million visitors, besides promoting several cultural initiatives. Among its many activities, Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo has strongly supported the creation of a new multimedia guide that can be used on site during the visit to the Monumental Complex and, especially, of a new app. The company D’Uva, which has been assigned to create it, has developed an innovative platform for the occasion. The historical and artistic content of the multimedia guide and of the app was created and curated for the occasion by Veneranda Fabbrica, confirming the ongoing commitment to welcome visitors from all parts of the world.

THE DUOMO MILANO APP

The new DUOMO MILANO app was inspired by the intention to provide visitors with a useful and intuitive tool that provides smartphones access to all information required to visit the Cathedral and the fascinating itineraries of the Monumental Complex. The app converges practical information and contents of multilingual audio tours, which can be downloaded from online stores and, on site, to the Samsung devices that D’Uva proposes as multimedia guides. The narration thus accompanies visitors along the chosen itinerary, describing places, events and history with an absorbing and clear style.

Visitors from all over the world can simply touch the display to access videos, images and contents, freely deciding what they wish to explore in detail for full immersion into an unforgettable guided tour. They can create customised digital postcards for sharing, thus transforming a cultural journey into a digital experience with the spectacular artistic beauty of Duomo di Milano.

Contents are available in 9 languages: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. The application’s design follows the guidelines of Google and Apple, taking into account all factors of the user experience (usability, accessibility, content architecture, interaction, design, etc.) that have been harmoniously developed with the visual identity of Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo.

The app is available for free download from Google Play Store and App Store. It gives free access to all information for the visit, to several services and simple content (the Façade).
It also allows to purchase and download, for a fee, all the complete multimedia tours and other services for the visit. The app can be entirely downloaded on the telephone so that contents can also be used without a Wi-Fi connection or Internet network.

Let’s dive into the visit: the top section of the homepage presents audio tours divided into 4 experiences: Façade, Cathedral, Terraces and Museum. Contents about the Façade can be consulted free of charge. The other three itineraries can be downloaded at the overall cost of € 4.99.
Among the various options offered for the experience of the visit, the guided tours also allow to activate the function “Nearby”, which displays the list of listening spots located near the device. The list is automatically updated as the visitor moves during the visit. This is achieved with the beacon sensor technology installed along the path. It is designed to dialogue with the app and to detect the presence of devices.

The services section of the homepage presents various options, which are activated by the direct link to Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo’s Web page, including the option of purchasing the ticket, booking guided tours, making donations for the Duomo’s renovation projects and accessing the Duomo Shop.

This section also has four “Explore” cards:

• Info for the tour: a brief presentation of the Monumental Complex of Duomo di Milano;
• Culture and Art, Events at the Duomo: it gives access to a text with a brief introduction to activities promoted by Veneranda Fabbricadel Duomo di Milano to support the Great Renovation Works of the Cathedral;
• Create a postcard: allows to take a picture or to select a photograph from the visitor’s own camera,and to edit it by applying filters to create digital postcards with theme decorations that can be either sent or shared online;
• General map: displays the general map of the Duomo’s Monumental Complex with useful information, such as admissions, ticket office, Duomo Shop, elevators, etc.

THE MULTIMEDIA GUIDE - PRODUCED BY D’UVA WITH SAMSUNG

Today the experience of your visit to Duomo di Milano is enhanced not only by the new app but also by the multimedia guide provided on site by Veneranda Fabbrica, always in 9 languages.

For this project D’Uva partnered Samsung, world leader for technology. With its devices, Samsung is the ideal partner to offer a complete experience of the visit, making it absorbing and consistent with the public’s habit to interact with increasingly sophisticated technological solutions.