The Naval Technical Museum

Arriving at its present site in 1958, after being housed inside the Naval Arsenal near to the Officina Congegnatori since 1923, the Naval Museum has a century old history, started off with curios coming from the Savoy Navy and collected and displayed during the 18th century at Villafranca. Moved to La Spezia from Genoa in 1870 it is still an essential place to visit for naval history and to study the technical evolution linked with the sea and navigation. The museum in fact exhibits an extremely interesting wealth of objects, displayed according to type and period criteria, in spite of the vast quantity and diversity, starting with small models of ancient boats ships. A section of the museum houses important means of assault, especially showing the MAS corps group, used by Luigi Rizzo for the Premuda expedition, whilst significant fragments from the hull of the submarine Scirè, adapted to carry the “maiali” (pigs, technically speaking “Slow Moving Torpedoes”), salvaged in the waters of Haifa where the torpedo submarine was sunk in its attempt to force the defence of that base, epitomizes a monument to commemorate this venture.
One of the most fascinating and valued sectors is certainly the one with the figureheads, including the remarkable figureheads coming from the corvette San Giovanni, the Royal Transport ship Cambria dated 1846 and the figurehead adorning the royal frigate Italia, formerly Farnese of the Royal Neapolitan Navy. The famous figurehead known as Atalanta, salvaged from the warship La Veloce in the waters of the Atlantic, is the most famous of them all, also because of a sort of seductively fascinating atmosphere that has always surrounded it.
A machine gun confiscated by Italian sailors from Chinese boxers in 1901 during an expedition which ended up by setting free European legations under besiege in Peking, is worthy of note, and standing out from amongst the numerous curios are those coming from the ship Stella Polare and also the remains of an ad hoc radio built by Biagi, the radio officer during the Umberto Nobile expedition. Other curios are a vivid reminder of Guglielmo Marconi’s experiments right here in the Spezia gulf in 1897 where he established radio contact with the tug Rimorchiatore n. 8 and the ship San Martino.
The museum has a collection of many other finds and curios, important witnesses of the history of the navy, the extension and re-organization works in progress will give an even more complete idea of the heritage conserved here.