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Museum of Country Culture in Trebbia Valley |
The Museum
The Museum is articulated in different sections:
- handicraft of the past
- working cycles in the countryside
- typical shed of the zone
- kitchen furnished in country style
- tools and agricultural means of transport
- ancient mill
- photographic exhibition of the Sacred in Trebbia Valley
- exhibition of vestment
Visitors can get close and watch objects made by artisans,
suitable to fulfill their needs. Ploughs, sickles, carts
and everything else used by farmers give us an idea about
the effort and the hard-working will of the men who cultivated
our lands.
The shed, with several tools gathered in it , gives us a
clue about the importance that animals had in our countryside,
both for burden and cattle.
The kitchen, cosy in his simplicity, is the room in which
the rural family presence is more alive, the place where
sad and joyful emotions used to merge every day.
Also there is an old pictures collection about moments of
life in our villages.
The Museum keeps a “wood in section” collection
as well, with pieces coming from the typical trees of the
zone.
Slides of landscapes, characteristic corners and flora of
our Valley are available on demand for school students and
groups.
At the first floor rooms in the Cloister, one can find agricultural
means of transport and work tools, today not used anymore
by farmers but replaced by modern agricultural machinery.
Also there is an interesting mill provided with millstones
and hopper and still in working order.
In 1990 an exhibition of sacred vestments and objects has
been inaugurated in three rooms of the Cloister.
The precious material, property of Montebruno Church includes
sacred vases, hangings of remarkable relief and objects of
cult.
Very interesting is a collection of small religious images
, testimony of popular faith and pity.
In particular occasions the exhibition has been enriched
with material taken from other churches.
Moreover the former Convent rooms are used for a permanent
photographic exhibition that collects pictures of aedicules
and chapels of the Valley.
Why a Museum?
The suggestive and interesting valley and the almost uncontaminated
natural landscape have seen a slow and continuous emigration
in the last decades.
Today villages almost lack young people and the chance of
them coming back seems to be unlikely.
Therefore, why here a Museum? One can understand only
after having breathed the healthy air of our mountains, having
crossed the uneven and tortuous roads of our villages, having
tasted the smell of our ground, having listened... our history,
the same history that the housewifes’ tools , the farmer’s
hoe and the woodman's axe tell us. Nowadays in our social
modern context where high technology employs are increasing
, Montebruno Museum wants to recover that farming culture
of the past , made of simplicity, imagination, poverty
and creativity.
The Museum exposing spaces being located in the Cloister
rooms of the massive Sanctuary, seems to evoke the
work, the devotion, the ingenuity of the generations who
have raised the building.
The Museum... where?
The High Trebbia Valley that from Torriglia opens up towards
Piacenza plain, with small villages located along the river
which the valley comes from, shows the lean aspect of the
rural scenery, made raw by the decadence of men and things,
but also dignified by the antiquity of human traces
and by precious laboriousness of the inhabitants.
The inhabited area of Montebruno (660 mt above sea level)
is situated along the National Road 45 that leads to Piacenza
from Genoa, in this part of Liguria where the history of simple
men and nature complete one another.
The village has certainly risen as a small settlement of
shepherds; its history is linked to the Sanctuary raising
and development.
(Article based on the brochure by the Community Montana
Tall Valtrebbia)
Museum opening hours
Winter (October-April): Saturday: 9,00/12,00 - 15,00/17,00 - Sunday: 15,00/17,00
Summer (May-September): Weekdays: 9,00/12,00 - 15,00/18,30 – Sunday and
holydays: 15,00/18,30
Groups and school student groups: make a date ringing to:
Communità Montana Alta Valtrebbia (High Trebbia Valley Mountainous
Community) - Montebruno GE - Phone 01095009 / 01095029 |
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