MUSEO CASA DON BOSCO

The Casa Don Bosco museum is located within the Valdocco complex, Mother House of the Salesians and birthplace of the work of St. John Bosco. It consists of two exhibition realities that form a single museum itinerary. The visit begins with the lead museum Museo Casa Don Bosco and ends with the small Museo Etnografico Missioni Don Bosco. Both museum realities insist on the same courtyard and together develop the multiple aspects of the Salesian charism through culture, art and history. The Casa Don Bosco Museum is located in a multi-ethnic and intercultural neighbourhood and is the only major cultural and museum centre in the area. It tells the story of a man, Don Bosco, and a place, Valdocco, who changed the history of a city and the lives of thousands of boys by giving them a home, a family, a future. The museum highlights the original rooms from the second half of the 19th century: the basement enhances the historical-structural spaces of the original destination of the former refectory, cellar, kitchen, theatre, etc.. It houses, among others, four exhibition sections: donations, Marian iconography, valuable liturgy, Salesian and Marian devotion. The ground floor sees the development of the museum in the courtyard and the so-called 'good night' portico with its cathedra, the 'showcase of trades' and the sculpture dedicated to Mamma Margaret, Don Bosco's mother. The tour continues on the first floor with the architectural and urban evolution of Valdocco, with the picture gallery, a room dedicated to the figure of St. John Bosco 'editor', as well as a large section devoted to Don Bosco's first collaborators. The second floor corresponds to the beating heart of the entire museum as it sees the 'holiest' rooms of Palazzo Pinardi, the so-called Camerette in which Don Bosco lived. Ample space is devoted to the Salesian holiness lived in Valdocco, to the Salesian family and its holiness. One room is dedicated to the historical event of Don Bosco's canonisation. The small Don Bosco Missions Ethnographic Museum recounts the encounter between Salesian missionaries and some of the populations with which they came into contact, starting with the first expedition to Patagonia in 1875. The Casa Don Bosco museum is a cultural reality, both national and international, that also tells the story of the city in which it is located, Turin, and the 134 countries where the Salesians are present, and is aimed at pilgrims and visitors from Turin, Italy and all over the world