MAC – MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO DELLA CITTA’ DI VERCELLI LUIGI BRUZZA

The Archaeological Museum of the City of Vercelli, named after the Barnabite father Luigi Bruzza, a distinguished scholar of Vercelli's history and archaeology, is housed in the medieval sleeve of the’former monastery of St Clare, overlooking the large square that once formed the cloister.

The collection includes over six hundred exhibits from excavation campaigns conducted in urban areas and traces the history of the ancient Vercellae via seven thematic rooms organised in chronological order. The new layout offers a interactive and multimedia route, with projectors and touch screens that encourage participative enjoyment, designed for families and school groups. Also dedicated to the latter are educational workshops realised in collaboration with the Leone Museum in Vercelli.

The exhibition starts with the pre-Roman occupation of the area, illustrating the finds from the village of the Libui, Celtic-speaking population settled in the area of the present city centre, and then followed the stages of Romanisation, the acquisition of the status of municipium and the crisis of the city in Late Antiquity. Objects of material culture and immersive technological tools provide insight into daily life, trade and the progressive transformation of customs.

The following rooms render the face of the Roman Vercellae, with the public infrastructure (walls, roads, sewers, port-canal, necropolis, baths and amphitheatre) and the rich domus private households, offering an insight into domestic, craft and commercial activities, as well as cults and funerary rites. The museum is part of the MUVV – Museums of Vercelli and Varallo.