Museo dei Colori Naturali “Delio Bischi”

Museum in the cloister of the Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo in Lamoli, on the history of natural colours from woad to dye plants, with a workshop.

Opening hours unknown

Directions

About the museum

The museum is located in Lamoli, a hamlet of Borgo Pace, in the cloister of the Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo, and operates within the Oasi San Benedetto. The route tells the story of natural colours and their use over the centuries, from antiquity to the early 20th century, when synthetic pigments came onto the market.

In the cloister are archive documents, bibliographic material and a herbarium with technical and scientific sheets on the main dye plants, with particular attention to woad (Isatis tinctoria), an important economic resource in the Renaissance. A development and research workshop allows visitors to extract plant pigments from flowers, berries, leaves and roots and apply them to fabrics and other supports. Dye plants are cultivated in the abbey’s meadows.

The Oasi San Benedetto organises educational workshops, courses and internships in dyeing wool, silk and cotton. Visitors can learn about and experiment with plant colours along a route through the museum, the greenhouse and experimental crops.

Highlights

Route on the history of natural colours from antiquity to the early 20th century
Herbarium with sheets on dye plants, focusing on woad
Workshop for extracting plant pigments
Dye plants grown in the abbey’s meadows

Visitors per year: approx. 1,500