Naples Museum allows visually impaired visitors to experience art through touch | Museums

The Sansevero Church Museum in Naples will allow dozens of visually impaired visitors to participate in a rare tactile experience, allowing them to touch famous works of art including the Veiled Christ, widely regarded as one of the most striking masterpieces in the history of sculpture.

On March 17, the museum will host an initiative called La meraviglia a portata di mano – a wonder within reach – organized in partnership with the Italian Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired of Naples, offering about 80 blind and visually impaired visitors the opportunity to view the marble masterpieces.

Visitors will be guided through the church by visually impaired guides as well in a program designed to put accessibility at the heart of the museum experience.

The protective barrier surrounding the sculptures will be removed, allowing participants, wearing rubber gloves, to explore by touch the intricate marble surface of the sculptures, including Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, which depicts Jesus encased in a translucent shroud made from the same mass as the statue. The concrete path will also extend to the reliefs at the foot of the La Pudicizia and Il Disinganno sculptures.

“The veil covering Christ is extraordinary. It is impossible to understand how Sanmartino was able to create it. The veil defies explanation – for those who can see and for those who cannot. When you touch it, you can feel the veins pulsing under it,” guide Chiara Locovardi told the government agency ANSA.

Completed in 1753, the Veiled Christ is one of the most stunning achievements in marble. The transparency of the shroud covering Jesus’ body appears so real that many still believe it must be the result of a lost alchemy capable of turning cloth into stone.

“This initiative forms part of our broader program to create an inclusive and accessible cultural space with dedicated paths and tools designed specifically to meet the different needs of the museum’s visitors,” said Maria Alessandra Masucci, President of the Sansevero Church Museum.

Giuseppe Ambrosino, of the Italian Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, said the project reflects a broader principle: that the enjoyment of beauty should be a universal right.

“Art should not be a privilege reserved for the visual,” he said. “Accessibility projects like this one transform the museum into a place of true inclusion, affirming that art belongs to everyone. In this case, visitors will not only be allowed to touch the marble sculptures; beauty itself will be able to flow through the hands and reach directly to the heart.”