01797nas a2200181   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260000800043100002100051700002000072700002000092700002200112700001600134700002000150245008300170490000700253520135500260       2024                            d  capr1 aChiara Innocente1 aFrancesca Nonis1 aAntonio Lo Faro1 aRossella Ruggieri1 aLuca Ulrich1 aEnrico Vezzetti00aA Metaverse Platform for Preserving and Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage0 v143 aThe metaverse, powered by XR technologies, enables human augmentation by enhancing physical, cognitive, and sensory capabilities. Cultural heritage sees the metaverse as a vehicle for expression and exploration, providing new methods for heritage fruition and preservation. This article proposes a metaverse application, inspired by the events of the Italian Resistance, promoting interactions between multiple users in an immersive VR experience while safeguarding intangible cultural assets according to an edutainment approach. The virtual environment, based on Ivrea s town hall square, provides in-depth information about the partisan s life and the historical value of its actions for the city. Furthermore, the application allows users to meet in the same virtual place and engage with one another in real time through the Spatial SDK. Before the public presentation, a heterogeneous group of thirty users underwent usability and engagement tests to assess the experience on both VR headsets and smartphones. Tests revealed statistically significant evidence that there is a genuine difference in users  perceptions of usability and engagement with different devices and types of interaction. This study highlights the effectiveness of adopting XR as a supporting technology to complement the real experience of cultural heritage valorization.