Museo Etnologico delle Apuane Luigi Bonacoscia

Ethnological museum in Massa with about 5,000 finds on rural life, trades and the industrial memory of the Apuan Alps, visitable by appointment.

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About the museum

The Museo Etnologico delle Apuane, named after Don Luigi Bonacoscia, was founded on the initiative of the priest himself and a group of friends by notarial deed of 14 March 1980. At the beginning it brought together two collections: the “Masnata” collection, of about 300 finds, and that of the museum being set up, of about 100.

In the following years the quantity and variety of the objects collected led the museum to hold about 5,000 finds, coming mainly from Massa, Carrara, the Lunigiana, the Garfagnana and the Versilia. The museum is in a green area near the church of Nostra Signora Regina della Pace, known as the Chiesa degli Uliveti, about 300 metres from the A12 motorway exit.

The route is divided into sections illustrating peasant life, with work in the fields, haymaking, livestock, the grape harvest and chestnut gathering, as well as the trades of the early 20th century, such as shoemaker, saddler, quarryman, blacksmith, carpenter, washerwoman and weaver, along with domestic life, school and printing. Machines and tools from the factories of the Zona Industriale Apuana (Apuan Industrial Zone), active from the 1930s to the 1980s, are also on display. The museum organises lectures, exhibitions and educational activities, and publishes the annual magazine “Le Apuane”.

Highlights

About 5,000 finds of Apuan material culture
Sections on peasant life: haymaking, grape harvest, chestnut gathering
Workshops and trades of the early 20th century: shoemaker, blacksmith, carpenter, printing
Machines and tools of the Zona Industriale Apuana (1930s–1980s)
Outdoor area with finds and reconstructions