By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — Aimed at reaching out to people unable to go to Rome for the Holy Year and helping the millions who are expected to visit St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican has teamed up with Microsoft and other specialized experts to create a “digital twin” of the church for an immersive and more meaningful experience.
St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 1 will launch a new website to feature virtual views, streaming services of religious celebrations and podcasts of prayerful meditations, as well as an app that will help visitors with suggested itineraries, audio guides and real-time updates about the lines to the Holy Door and other sites.
In January, young students around the world will be able to explore the basilica on Microsoft’s game-based learning platform, Minecraft Education.
The multiple projects use AI technology to help people weave together the historical, artistic and spiritual meanings connected with the world’s largest church, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the basilica, told reporters at a Vatican news conference Nov. 11.
The “digital ecosystem,” he said, will accompany visitors and help them have a more spiritual experience.
The cardinal said the idea to create the new services emerged when he and Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, were admiring Michelangelo’s La Pieta statue together in the basilica in 2022 and decided it would be important to share the meaning of these ancient and important works of art in a way that is “understandable and accessible” to more people.
Smith said it also flowed from the fact the tech giant has been working closely with Vatican officials since 2018 starting with the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” a commitment by global organizations to follow key ethical principles in today’s emerging technologies.
The tech company’s “AI for Good” lab uses AI to model and create digital representations of any physical body, be it a factory, a building or an entire city. And “Microsoft had done similar work elsewhere in Europe,” he said, by creating a 3D-holographic form of France’s Mont-Saint-Michel.
Working with Iconem, a French startup specializing in the digitization of important cultural sites in 3D, experts used cameras, laser scanners and two drones for one month in 2023 to capture almost half a million high-resolution images of St. Peter’s Basilica, Smith said.
Sophisticated AI technology was used to piece all those photos together, he said.
The technology is so new that it was not available even 2-1/2 years ago “when we started talking about this project,” Smith said.
The result is viewers can explore the basilica from top to bottom, getting close-up looks even of St. Peter’s tomb below, and workers at the basilica can identify previously unseen cracks, missing tiles or other potential repairs needing attention, Smith said.
