Here you can find a list of museums in the Po and Varaita valleys. You will find ethnographic, natural history museums, and typical local crafts museums, such as the Costume museum or the museum mobile, the Harp and the musical theme park.
MAIRA VALLEY
ACCEGLIO - MUSEO ETNOGRAFICO - La Misun d'En Bot
Fraz. Chiavetta Acceglio
Telefono: 0171.99017/99005
A traditional abode of this geographical area has been reconstructed inside the museum, consisting of a kitchen, a bedroom, a stable and a hayloft where items and tools used in domestic life and work are on display. The collection also includes small mannequins with the female costumes typical of Valle Maira and references to the tradesmen of the olden days: cobblers, blacksmiths, farriers, and carpenters.
ACCEGLIO - Museo d'Arte Sacra dell'Alta Valle Maira
Borgo Villa Acceglio
Telefono: 0171.900225 - 348.2701671
This small museum of sacred art kept, mounted inside the 17th century Palazzo Gotti di Salerano, is a true gem that is an absolute and lots must on a sightseeing tour of the upper Valle Maira. The collection includes many objects of the 15th - 19th centuries from the many chapels scattered throughout the villages.
DRONERO - Museo Malle'
Via Valmala, 9
Tel: 0171.909329 - Fax:0171.918834
This Museum is located in the former house of art historian Luigi Mallè, which he donated to the Comune di Dronero (Council of Dronero). Temporary exhibitions are held in this museum, which houses the original furniture and the works of art that Mallè himself collected during his life. The permanent exhibition has been arranged in chronological order and includes diverse works: from late XVI century Flemish paintings to works by modern painters such as Fontana, Gonzales, Lucebert, Sutherland, Mastroianni and Parisot, which are exhibited in the last room of the exhibition together with two showcases where Art Nouveau vases, ceramics from Sarreguemines and two Chinese trumpet vases are on display.
MACRA - Ecomuseo dell'Alta Valle Maira
Comune di Celle di Macra, Borgata Chiesa, 1
Tel: 0171.999.312 Fax: 0171.999.835
This Eco Museum is the result of an initiative of the mid-valley communities of Macra and Celle di Macra for the purpose of bringing together the whole of 12 communes known as the “Repubblica indipendente della Valle Maira” (Independent Republic of Valle Maira) cited in the ´Statuti della Valmaira´ of the 14th century. Its goal is to tell about the territory of this Provencal valley of the Alps throughout time and space, highlighting the relationships between human beings, nature, the environment and resources. Among the themes chosen to represent some of the more significant aspects of the territorial reality is that of the itinerant trades associated with the economic history of the valley.
MARMORA - Museo Etnologico all'aperto
Locanda Ceaglio, Fraz. Vernetti –
Tel. / fax. +39 0171.998117
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At Locanda Ceaglio, among the narrow streets of the small hamlet Vernetti, it has been fitted out an outdoor ethnographic museum. Here you can find old pictures and instruments used in the past times to remember the hard life made once in the mountain.
STROPPO - L'escolo de mountanho - La scuola di montagna
Borgata Paschero 12, c/o Municipio
Tel. +39.0171.999112
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The museum was born from geographer Fernanda Gregoli’s idea in 1994, on the occasion of Giovanni Biglione’s discussion on his graduation thesis on Valle Maira containing a chapter on school, which proposed to create a permanent exhibition dedicated to it.
Following a long search for the material, the examination and cataloguing of the school documents on part of a group of the Valley’s teachers, the local council gave disposal of the premises and funded the enterprise. It was inaugurated in 1999, and reconstructs a classroom with material that dates back to the first years of the 1900s, and a library which keeps books from the end of the 1800s to 1970s. Report cards, teacher’s registers and photographs testimony and narrate the story of the school of long ago.
GRANA VALLEY
CARAGLIO – Il filatoio
Via Matteotti, 40 – Caraglio
Associazione Culturale Marcovaldo
Tel. +39.0171.618260, fax +39.0171.610735
Biglietteria: tel. +39.0171.618300
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Until the end of the 19th century, Caraglio was an important centre for silk work and the production of organzine, a highly prized thread obtained from silk worms and largely exported to factories in Lyon. Built in only two years, between 1676 and 1678, the Filatoio (Spinning Mill) is an extraordinary and unique example of 17th century Piemonte “industrial architecture”. The elegant and harmonious building has numerous rooms, cylindrical towers decorated with stucco work placed at the building’s four corners, and work rooms that open up to two large inner courtyards. Today, completely restored, it houses the Museo Regionale della Seta (Regional Silk Museum) in the former factory area and an exhibit of contemporary art in the former residential area.
CARAGLIO - Centro Sperimentale per le Arti Contemporanee
Via Cappuccini, 29
Tel: 0171-618260 Fax 0171-610735
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The Experimental Centre for the Contemporary Arts has been running since 1996 in the former convent of the Capuchin of Caraglio, a remarkable property of XVII c. including the convent, the Church and a large park. Every year, the centre hosts contemporary arts exhibitions in collaboration with museums and cultural institutions. Inside the building you can find many services like book shop, cafeteria, library, playground for children, hotel booking service.
CASTELMAGNO - Muzeou dal Travai d'Isi' (Museo del lavoro di qui)
Localita' chiappi
Tel: +39.0171.682540/986370 - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Housed within a building from the 1600s, on the outside walls you will find a splendid meridian dating back to 1763; the museum work utensils of this Alpine community of the upper Valle Grana having a Languedoc language, culture and tradition. It consists of a collection of 250 tools that evoke the life of a community located at the limit altitude for human survival.
CASTELMAGNO - Pichot Muzeu d'La Vita d'Isi' (Piccolo Museo della Vita di Quassù)
Fraz. Colletto Castelmagno
Tel: 011.8172212 gThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Established in 1992, this museum has two sections: the first, which used to be a large stable, as the documented collection in Italian and Languedoc, of old-fashioned games, school desks and other school objects, mountaineer cooking utensils, lamps and oil lamps, traps and clothing. The second section is dedicated to the jobs of emigrated mountaineers and other aspects of local life.
MONTEROSSO GRANA - Museo Etnografico di Comboscuro
Fraz. San Lucio di Comboscuro
Tel / Fax +39.0171.98771
www.coumboscuro.org – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This Museum is a meeting point between material culture and the culture and Provencal language. It gives visitors an overview of Provencal traditional manufactured products such as hemp and wool, as well as milk processing, household handicrafts and farming. Among the objects exhibited, are: a XV century oil press and everyday tools and utensils.
VALGRANA - Museo sul Catarismo
Via Galimberti, 19
Tel. +39.0171-98216 - Cell. +39.347.7604350 - www.catari.it
Permanent exhibition on the presence of the Cathars in the area around Cuneo and in the so-called Occitan area.
STURA VALLEY
ARGENTERA - Il museo del Contrabbandiere
Borgo Ferriere – Rifugio Becchi Rossi:
Tel. +39.0171.96715
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The “Mizoun del Countrabandier” is an old house located in the hamlet of Ferriere, in the upper Stura Valley, renovated and converted into “smuggler’s house” i.e. a museum about the ancient and traditional practise of smuggling. The house has been restored as it appeared a few decades ago in the daily life at that time: a kitchen, a bedroom and a “soulier”, i.e. a large room with wooden loft. Objects and tools shown in every room bring the visitors back to the ancient traditions and activities in the valley.
DEMONTE - Museo Etnografico Lou Feracaval
Piazza Renzo Spada
Tel: +39.0171.955555 - Fax: +39.0171.955055
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Managed by the Comunità Montana in collaboration with the Comune di Demonte, the museum is located in an ancient blacksmith’s workshop that was once active in the Valle Stura. Inaugurated in 1995, its main aim is to document the agricultural activities and transport based on the use of horses, mules and donkeys. Inside the museum both agricultural and the blacksmith’s tools for taking care of the animals (chisels, punches, files, hot-works hammers, anvils) are on display.
DEMONTE - Museo degli Attrezzi e dei Vecchi Mestieri di Valle
Parco Borelli
Tel: 0171.95400
The museum, located in the Borrelli Park, was born with the intent to preserve and document the tools used in the past for the exercise of the most important jobs: farmer, bricklayer, carding wool, winemaker, etc.
PIETRAPORZIO - Ecomuseo della Pastorizia
Borgata Ponte Bernardo
Tel: +39.0171.955555 - Fax: +39.0171.955055
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The original location is the one in the centre of the town, in a building that was renovated and equipped to accommodate groups of visitors, temporary exhibits and educational activities. On the ground floor there is a small dairy that allows visitors and schoolchildren to directly see sheep cheese being made. A typical small square divides the first building from another one that is quite a bit larger. The latter building on the ground floor has a selection of rams tended by a family of sheepherders who lives in the town. On the two upper floors are the offices and a shop that sells precious handmade articles of Sambucana sheep wool. On the third floor is a large hall accommodating the museum´s permanent sheep-herding collection.
SAMBUCO - Centro di Documentazione Valle Stura
Via Umberto, I
Tel:0171.955555 Fax: 0171.955055
The Documentation Centre of the Valley is a structure created by the Comunità Montana with the aim to gather documentation, to develop research, to collaborate and organize the protection of historical and cultural heritage of the valley. Born in 1988, the centre has organized in the past years a series of conferences on the environment, history and culture of the Stura valley; traditional music and dance courses, research on place names, construction of temporary and permanent exhibitions.
VALLORIATE - Museo del Castagno
Frazione Airale, 24 – tel. +39.0171.72977 – fax +39.0171.717015
www.marcovaldo.it - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The principal objective of the museum, inaugurated in 2001 and located in a building on the central square of the town, is to demonstrate the importance of the chestnut trees to the territory and to the local population, above all in its historical context. The museum preserve the tools once used to maintain the forests and work with its products, together with an extensive array of teaching materials made in collaboration with the School of Agriculture of the Università degli Studi di Torino, which illustrate the different pathology of chestnut trees. The building also at one time held a classroom, which has been fully recovered.
