Museo storico Giuseppe Garibaldi
Civic museum in the fifteenth-century Palazzo Olginati in Como, on the Risorgimento, the Great War and local ethnography. Rooms currently closed for maintenance.
Have only individual sections read aloud
About the museum
The museum is housed in Palazzo Olginati, a fifteenth-century building erected by the De Curte family, later passed to the counts Della Torre di Rezzonico and finally to the Olginati. In 1853 Luigi Olginati commissioned the renovation works that gave the palace its present appearance, soberly elegant on the outside and richly decorated inside. The last member of the family, Carlotta, left the palace with its furnishings to the Comune di Como on condition that a museum named after Giuseppe Garibaldi be set up there, in memory of the general's stay in 1866.
The display of Risorgimento relics had begun in 1884 with objects gathered among the citizens of Como and, after the opening of the Palazzo Giovio venue in 1897, had found a place in the Sala Risorgimento. In 1932 the collections were moved to Palazzo Olginati, into the rooms of the piano nobile, and the museum was inaugurated in the presence of General Ezio Garibaldi, the hero's grandson. A few years later the palace was linked to Palazzo Giovio by two covered passageways, creating a single display route with the Archaeological Museum.
The route explores the history of Como in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the Carbonari uprisings and the Five Days of Como of 1848 to the battle of San Fermo in 1859, from the Expedition of the Thousand to the Great War. An ethnographic section, set up in 1968, keeps evidence of local culture, including costumes of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, lace and embroidery, and an eighteenth-century Neapolitan crib (presepe).
Highlights
- Garibaldian room with red shirts and relics of Garibaldi and his followers
- 1859 room with the painting of the death of Captain De Cristoforis at the battle of San Fermo
- Great War room with equipment and weapons
- Ethnographic section with costumes, lace and embroidery and an eighteenth-century Neapolitan crib
- Covered bridge with a bust of Garibaldi linking Palazzo Giovio and Palazzo Olginati
Permanent exhibitions
- Sezione Risorgimento e storia contemporanea – Rooms on the piano nobile of Palazzo Olginati on Como's history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the 1848–49 uprisings, the battle of San Fermo in 1859, the Expedition of the Thousand, the African campaigns and the Great War.
- Sezione etnografica – Rooms set up in 1968 with costumes and accessories of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, original nineteenth-century interiors, lace and embroidery and an eighteenth-century Neapolitan crib.
- Founded
- 1932
- Operated by
- Comune di Como
- Visitors per year
- approx. 16,664
Admission & discounts
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Accessibility
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Kids & families
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Getting there & parking
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Amenities & dining
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Events & venue rental
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Plan your visit
| Good to know | During the closure, consultation of the museum's items can be requested, according to the procedures indicated on the website of the Musei Civici di Como. |
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