Frequently asked questions

Preserving Assisi is a digital documentation project for the Basilica of Saint Francis and the Sacred Convent in Assisi. It brings together gigapixel photographs, 360° panoramas and editorial content to help people discover the complex and support research and conservation.

The project involves Haltadefinizione, part of Gruppo Panini Cultura, and the General Custody of the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi. The About us page presents the organisers, institutional supporters and partners.

Explore divides the complex into the Upper Basilica, Lower Basilica and Exterior. Choose a level and a point on its map to open the available 360° panorama for that location.

A gigapixel photograph contains at least one billion pixels. It lets you enlarge an artwork and examine details that are difficult to distinguish in an ordinary-sized photograph. Available frescoes open in a viewer with zoom controls.

A 360° panorama lets you look around from a particular location and understand the surrounding spaces. A gigapixel photograph lets you examine an individual artwork closely. Interactive points in the panorama open the associated frescoes.

Open Frescoes and choose an artwork, or select a fresco hotspot in a panorama. In the gigapixel viewer, drag the image and use the plus and minus controls to zoom. The Full artwork control restores the complete view.

Stories are guided narratives that lead your attention through details of artworks. Insights contains editorial material about the heritage and the project. They offer complementary ways to learn about the collection.

The digitisation of the complex is currently around 50% complete. Further acquisition campaigns, planned through to 2027, will progressively expand the platform with new spaces, artworks, gigapixel and 360° images, 3D models and other content.

The current 3D view is a schematic point model that helps explain the organisation of the complex. It is not presented as a complete scientific survey. The project documentation lists 3D models and point clouds among the acquisition materials.

If you opened the fresco from a 360° panorama, the back arrow returns to that panorama. If you opened it from Frescoes, the X closes the viewer and returns to the collection. In the panorama, the X closes the viewer.