Remastering the Renaissance: A Virtual Experience of Pope Julius II's Library in Raphael's Stanza Della Segnatura

To develop deliberate-play experiences broadly available beyond museum walls, we need to build, test and implement a bridge that allows Scalar annotations to migrate to and from 3D environments built in Unity, and to port Scalar coordinates in order to allow easeful mapping of images in Scalar onto virtual environments. This new Scalar-Unity bridge will make possible many discursive platforms for virtual visitors. Our proof of concept: the Vatican's Stanza della Segnatura, painted by Raphael as the setting for Pope Julius II's library. We seek to construct an immersive digital environment of that room and its original contents, using Scalar as a back-end authoring platform to annotate and tag connections between the library’s books, images, and themes, and using Unity 3D to visualize them. This virtual reality environment will enable contemporary audiences everywhere to "visit" this canonical space, open window shutters, move furnishings, and select books from recreated shelves.