Summary
The paper deals with the definition of ‘virtual museum’ and the relation between ‘digital’ and ‘physical’ in the museum context. It offers a detailed picture of the Italian experiences in this field from the early Nineties to 2016, with exhaustive bibliographical references. The several employments of VR in museums are highlighted, from the reconstruction of now lost monuments to the documentation of inaccessible or fragile objects, from the verification of hypothetical reconstructions to the simultaneous presentation of objects located in different places, from conservation to communication.

Innovative VR tools and techniques
• The paper does not deal with specific tools, but it has a wide historical approach and takes into consideration the different employs of VR in Italian museums from the early Nineties to 2016, focusing for example on interactive experiences and the communication of virtual reconstructions.

VR in education
• The paper offers a thorough presentation of the different applications of VR in archeological and art historical museums, both online (e.g. with web3d applications) and onsite (e.g. with VR visors)
• The paper includes a checklist to evaluate the quality of a virtual museum
• The paper focuses also on the cooperation among four museums of as many cities (Amsterdam, Rome, Sarajevo, Alexandria), that gave origin to the international exhibition Keys to Rome. Professionals from different fields cooperated in this project to produce 3D models, stories, films and audio files, in order to generate different virtual museums about the history of the Roman Empire (Keys to Rome, 2014: www.v-must.net/library/publications/keys-rome-roman-culture-virtual-museums-volume-2014)
• As far as the gamification and the interaction with visitors is concerned, the paper mentions the cases of Imago Bononiae and Admotum, with bibliography and web references