The Garibaldi panorama was created around 1860 by John James Story, and is one of the few remaining examples of this type of commercial entertainment. In 2007, with financial support from the Department of Italian Studies and Vincent J. Buonanno (Brown 66), the Brown University Library digitized the panorama and added it to the Garibaldi/Risorgimento website. In 2009 the Brown University Library in conjunction with Browns Computer Science Department, co-sponsored by Microsoft Research, embarked on a pilot project to exhibit the panorama with the Microsoft Surface.

The Brown University Garibaldi on the Surface project is once again in international exhibitions. A centerpiece in last years British Library exhibition, Growing Knowledge the Evolution of Research, the digital scroll was recently on display in Bologna Salaborsa (November 15-30, 2011) as part of the Storia da toccare [History to Touch]: the Panorama Garibaldi at Salaborsa, and is currently on view through January 15 in the Sala del Risorgimento of Sienas Palazzo Pubblico.

Garibaldi on the Surface allows users to explore and examine this massive double-sided 270 foot linear painting depicting the life and times of the Italian liberator, along with a wide array of pre-selected historically and culturally relevant digital documents, images, web pages, video and audio narration from the Garibaldi-Risorgimento digital archive. Researchers can zoom in and out on specific scenes, listen to a voice-over narration in both Italian and English, access embedded documents, and read explanatory notes about characters and events depicted in the panorama.

Further exhibitions are in the works. Visitors to the digital archive can retrieve additional information about panoramas and dioramas as optical devices and popular representational media in 19th-century Europe. A video about the scroll is also available online.