Civic Ethnographic Museum

The Ethnographic Museum is housed in the same building as the Diocesan museum and is named after Giovanni Podenzana, the dedicated collector who, towards the end of the XIX century, recuperated traditional objects belonging to the people and the rural life that was gradually disappearing on the wave of industrialization. The objects preserved and on display, datable from the XVIII century to the first half of the 20th century, are divided into six sections: worship and the people’s cults, superstition and therapeutic practices, jewels and objects in gold, domestic furnishing, work and working implements and lastly the section devoted to spinning and weaving and clothes. A highly civilized way of life emerges, capable of transforming minute objects seemingly of no intrinsic value into small artistic masterpieces, a daily routine endowed by the skilled art of craftsmen. The section with fabrics and costumes belonging to the individual historic Lunigiana communities is remarkable with its gold filigree jewellery, worn on feast days and to show off with all due pride, as well as the women’s incredible tiny bonnets, that had so amazed foreign visitors visiting the Gulf during the last century. But the domestic utensils and implements connected with farming and pastoral activities, furnishings and household goods, signs of worship and the people’s religious fervour are also all factors making up a rare and subtly fascinating repertoire.