Alexander had always enjoyed surfing the Internet. He followed his thoughts and occasionally clicked on some topic that caught his attention and got lost in reading, delving deeper, always finding interesting topics. During the lockdown, the web had become his library, his study room. Thanks to the web and the mythical Academia.edu he had managed to complete important studies, accessing a very large bibliography, and his articles had been published in specialized journals. As a museologist he was following the digital evolution of museums, which began somewhat quietly during the Covid emergency and then became more and more decisive, in order to offer services to different audiences and intercept new groups of users. He decided to devote an afternoon to browsing museum sites to get a feel for them. Deliberately he did not start with museums in big cities: his journey through the museum web would start in Codogno.
He typed in “Codogno museums” and got two results: “Art collection C. Lamberti” and “Cabrini Museum.” He knew practically nothing about Francesca Cabrini, except that she was the patron saint of emigrants and was depicted in the apse basin of the Lodi cathedral. The site was wonderfully organized: and there was even a virtual tour! The history of the convent, purchased by the Saint in 1880 to make it the mother house of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, and then the virtual tour of the rooms used as a museum: the beginning of the itinerary and the site explained that one entered the museum through the same door at which the Saint entered and that one climbed the same stairs and walked through the same spaces in which she lived with the first sisters. And the aural suggestion of the latch opening and the jingling of heavy keys! And then there were different paths: clicking one could see in detail some objects related to the Saint and listen to descriptions and explanations of the most significant exhibits.
Alexander was fascinated by the woman and her precocious missionary vocation. And he was not the only one.
On the virtual visit, he had been struck by the six paintings arranged along the access staircase, depicting different moments in the Saint’s life: her birth, childhood, and early missionary vocation. It was precisely this painting by painter Aldo Cogni, aka Cabri, that had struck him: the little girl putting little paper boats full of violets into the water: her missionaries. Here is the color purple so recurrent in the construction of the site! An example of great devotion to the Saint in simple, incisive language…. *Archaeologist and museologist.
