More Ultra-High Resolution Images from HAL9000

Italian company HAL9000 has added more images to its portfolio of ultra high-resolution images depicting Italian Renaissance art, with the latest additions coming from the Uffizi Galleries.  A while back I wrote about HAL9000's 16-billion pixel image of Leonardo's Last Supper. Their recent additions include Caravaggio's Bacchus (3.4 billion pixels), Verrocchio and Leonardo's Baptism of Christ (11.7 billion pixels), Leonardo's Annunciation (10.3 billion pixels), Botticelli's  Birth of Venus (20.4 billion pixels) and Primavera (28 billion pixels), and Bronzino's Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo (4.8 

billion pixels).

Nothing compares to standing in a gallery in the Uffizi with one of these masterpieces, but at the same time the features we can see here are not possible to witness in person.  These are the macro views that only a conservator might see in such dazzling detail, like brushstrokes, craquelures, the dirty fingernails of Bacchus, or the light reflecting off of a single pearl. The small price we pay is a little patience while waiting for the pictures to load, and tolerating the 

presence of the Haltadefinizione watermarks.

For more information about HAL9000 and the process used to photograph these works, see this post over at Wired.

16 Billion Pixels

Have you seen the 16-billion pixel reproduction of Leonardo's restored Last Supper? Created jointly in 2007 by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities, De Agostini, and HAL9000 (a high-definition photography company), this image boasts pixel dimensions of 172,181 x 93,611. One can zoom into areas as small as a square millimeter to reveal minute cracks and chips that are invisible to those viewing the painting in situ. While the imaging company's ubiquitous and perhaps unavoidable watermarks may detract a bit from the experience, one can still study the Apostles' toes, the tablecloth, and the landscape in the background in close detail. The Last Supper is the most famous of HAL9000's high definition projects, but the company's web site also features an 8.6-billion pixel  image of Gaudenzio Ferrari's 1513 Life of Christ, from S. Maria della Grazie in Varallo Sesia, and a 9.8-billion pixel image of Andrea Pozzo's Glory of St Ignatius Loyola (1691-1694), from San Ignazio in Rome.

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, ca. 1494-1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy.  From Wikimedia Commons.