Description
The Museo Civico Etnografico Giovanni Podenzana tells the story of peasant life in Lunigiana, between the Magra and Vara valleys, from the mid-18th century to the early 20th. It is on Via del Prione, in La Spezia's pedestrian center, in the old 15th-century oratory of San Bernardino.
It is the right museum for anyone who wants to understand how people lived in these valleys before industry: costumes, jewelry, cradles, tools and amulets from a simple world full of rituals and beliefs, swept away by industrialization.
The richest section is that of the traditional costumes of the 19th century, with the festive dresses of the women of La Spezia, Sarzana and the Cinque Terre. The skirts are made of blue cloth woven on local looms: an ancestor of denim.
Next to them are the gold filigree jewelry, worn on feast days, and the locally made silver crosses, which women never took off, not even when working in the fields.
Also look for the woven raffia hats, so tiny they amazed the English travelers who visited the gulf in the 19th century, and the carved cradles from Bratto, near Pontremoli, small masterpieces of craftsmanship.
The rest of the tour follows everyday life: household furnishings, ex-votos, objects of superstition and healing magic, tools of farmers and shepherds. Many carved tools for spinning and weaving were engagement gifts to the bride-to-be.
Giovanni Podenzana, born in La Spezia in 1864, led a life worthy of a novel. In 1891 he sailed from Genoa to Australia, and from there he traveled around Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea, Japan and the United States.
In Sydney he founded and conducted an all-women orchestra, the Mandolin Double Quintet, and opened a school of mandolin and guitar. He played as a concert musician on cruise ships between Italy and the United States, and in New York he founded the Italian Musical League.
Meanwhile he was sending objects from distant cultures to the civic museum. Back in Italy in 1905, meeting the ethnographer Lamberto Loria made him change course: from 1906 he began collecting the objects of his own land, and he devoted more than thirty years to it.
Don't miss
• The skirts in blue cloth.
• The silver crosses and the filigree jewelry.
• The raffia hats.
• The carved cradles from Bratto.
Did you know?
• The oratory stands near the spot where the medieval walls had the Genoa gate, also called the San Bernardino gate.
• Podenzana also played the cello: he gave concerts in Japan in 1915 and in the United States in 1917.
It is the right museum for anyone who wants to understand how people lived in these valleys before industry: costumes, jewelry, cradles, tools and amulets from a simple world full of rituals and beliefs, swept away by industrialization.
The richest section is that of the traditional costumes of the 19th century, with the festive dresses of the women of La Spezia, Sarzana and the Cinque Terre. The skirts are made of blue cloth woven on local looms: an ancestor of denim.
Next to them are the gold filigree jewelry, worn on feast days, and the locally made silver crosses, which women never took off, not even when working in the fields.
Also look for the woven raffia hats, so tiny they amazed the English travelers who visited the gulf in the 19th century, and the carved cradles from Bratto, near Pontremoli, small masterpieces of craftsmanship.
The rest of the tour follows everyday life: household furnishings, ex-votos, objects of superstition and healing magic, tools of farmers and shepherds. Many carved tools for spinning and weaving were engagement gifts to the bride-to-be.
Giovanni Podenzana, born in La Spezia in 1864, led a life worthy of a novel. In 1891 he sailed from Genoa to Australia, and from there he traveled around Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea, Japan and the United States.
In Sydney he founded and conducted an all-women orchestra, the Mandolin Double Quintet, and opened a school of mandolin and guitar. He played as a concert musician on cruise ships between Italy and the United States, and in New York he founded the Italian Musical League.
Meanwhile he was sending objects from distant cultures to the civic museum. Back in Italy in 1905, meeting the ethnographer Lamberto Loria made him change course: from 1906 he began collecting the objects of his own land, and he devoted more than thirty years to it.
Don't miss
• The skirts in blue cloth.
• The silver crosses and the filigree jewelry.
• The raffia hats.
• The carved cradles from Bratto.
Did you know?
• The oratory stands near the spot where the medieval walls had the Genoa gate, also called the San Bernardino gate.
• Podenzana also played the cello: he gave concerts in Japan in 1915 and in the United States in 1917.