Telling the Story: An Interactive Multimedia Exhibit Narrating the 900 Years of the Alma Mater

In this paper we present the steps that led from the conceptualization to the implementation of an interactive multimedia storytelling system that narrates the history of the Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. The aim of this work has been that of providing the Bologna City Museum (based in the Pepoli Palace and run by Genus Bononiae) with a system that describes the almost millenary history of the University of Bologna. In fact, the history of the Alma Mater was incredibly missing inside this Museum. Hence a small, but heterogeneous group of professionals, which includes historians, computer scientists, artists, art directors, 3D animators and academics, undertook this complex task, considering the important background of the institution, which boasts a history that includes the affiliation of characters that range from Dante Alighieri (the author of the Divine Comedy) to Giosue' Carducci (the first Italian Nobel prize laureate for literature). The outcome of this work is that the Alma Mater has regained the center of the stage, inside the main city museum of Bologna, with the use of modern digital storytelling techniques and following rigorous aesthetic principles, all put to good use to finally let visitors easily browse through the highest historical moments of such institution