Alla scoperta del Cavalier Calabrese: proposta di audiodescrizione delle opere di Mattia Preti alla Galleria Nazionale di Cosenza

This thesis focuses on the audio description of Mattia Preti’s works exhibited at the Galleria Nazionale di Cosenza. It is accompanied by an introductory overview of audio description in general, the importance of accessibility, and key notions from visual and narrative semiotics. The thesis is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the highly topical issue of accessibility, also connected to sustainability, and provides an overview of audio description as a concept. Audio description is then compared to narration and, drawing on elements of visual and structural semiotics, explores how a painting can be transformed into a story. Intersemiotic translation and the concepts of signifier and meaning are also compared with interlinguistic translation. The second section explores concepts such as the museum institution, museum description and multimodality. It also reviews a number of case studies of possible interactive uses, projects supported by new technologies and interdisciplinary collaborations. The third and final section presents proposals for audio description of the works, all by the same artist, who was born in the region where the museum is located, and whose production is therefore particularly rooted in local tradition. It also comments on the choices made during the drafting process. A bibliography can be found in the appendix at the end of this paper.