Private collectors can purchase and exhibit in all their mighty glory digitalized version of iconic paintings
Mantegna, Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Lippi, Signorelli, Canaletto. A collaboration between some of the major Italian museums and Cinello, a digitization company based in Florence, Milan, and Copenhagen company, allows the sale of some of the most iconic Italian masterpieces. What collectors from around the world can acquire are unique Digital Art Works (DAW) with an NFT. So far Cinello has been collaborating, among others, with the Uffizi in Florence, Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Pinacoteca di Brera and Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, the Musei Reali in Turin, the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, and the Museo di Palazzo Pretorio in Prato. The first one with whom they created a catalog is the Uffizi.
A collaboration between some of the major Italian museums and Cinello, a digitization company based in Florence, Milan, and Copenhagencompany, allows the sale of some of the most iconic Italian masterpieces
The Florentine museum agreed with Cinello to replicate each of the selected masterpieces nine times. To start with, there are 17 works (out of a wider selection) that the Uffizi grants to this market. They are: a Madonna del Granduca, la Velata e la Madonna del Cardellino di Raffaello, La nascita di Venere, la Primavera e la Calunnia di Botticelli, L’annunciazione e il Battesimo di Cristo di Leonardo, L’Eleonora da Toledo del Bronzino, il Bacco di Caravaggio, I quattro filosofi di Rubens, La leda e il cigno di Tintoretto, la Venere di Urbino di Tiziano, La veduta di Palazzo Ducale a Venezia di Canaletto. In the catalogue there is also Michelangelo’s iconic Tondo Doni. This has been the first DAW to be sold for 140,000 Euros to an Italian collector. Income that was equaly split between the Uffizi and Cinello. The Director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, speaks of DAWs not as a clones, but in terms of a technological translations of the original works. He said: “These DAWs, with their dual affiliation to both the physical and algorithmic worlds, are thus a ‘piece’ of the Uffizi.”
The technological development is the result of the ingenuity of Franco Losi and his partner John Blem. Since 2017, with their company Cinello, they have developed this project. Each DAW is a digital copy of a masterpiece of the history of art. It is produced in a limited series at a 1 : 1 scale, certified, and protected with a patented digital encryption. The extraordinarily high technological content makes it incomparable with anything else and guarantees its uniqueness. Each DAW has an allocated NFT created on the Blockchain which certifies its ownership and the double authentication, both by the museum and Cinello. This technology is also and above all designed to safeguard the artworks.
Ilona Catani Scarlett