The author illustrates the positive and negative features of the virtual museum, and the role of visual and new interactive technologies in the cognitive processes. He then defines the concept of the virtual museum as the communicative projection of the real museum. According to this definition, the virtual museum is not a simple copy of the real museum; in fact, the radical re-organization related to the task of communication, also from the point of view of the display structure of the virtual museum, creates the possibility of exploiting powerful and effective visual means, which is the strong point of virtual construction.