MUSEO STORICO “GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI”

The Museum was inaugurated in 1932. The current exhibition organisation in the two sections Risorgimento and Contemporary History and Ethnography dates back to the 1960s; in recent years, the itinerary has been enriched by two rooms, dedicated to lace and a Neapolitan nativity scene. The first rooms are dedicated to the pre-Risorgimento and Risorgimento periods: starting from the Napoleonic era and arriving at the time of the Carbonari uprisings, we then move on to the room concerning the anti-Austrian insurrection of 1848, which is somewhat the heart of this itinerary. The next small room is dedicated to the Battle of San Fermo (1859) after which, victorious over the Austrians, Garibaldi descended on Como. To the latter and his followers is dedicated the room on the Epopea Garibaldina, from the Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 to the last flashes of the Red Shirts' voluntarism in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. The second part of the tour deals with contemporary history, i.e. the wars of the 20th century, starting with the African campaigns (1887-1937); this is followed by World War I, with numerous weapons and various items of military equipment. The last room collects mementos from World War II; the two world wars are ideally linked by the memorabilia placed in the room dedicated to the Heroes of Como. Ethnographic objects, testimonies to local culture at various levels, have appeared in the Museum's catalogues since its earliest days; after the setting up of the Risorgimento section in 1932 in the rooms on the main floor of the palace overlooking the square, this was followed, in the following years, by that of the other rooms on the same floor of the palace, most of which overlooked the large courtyard and portico. It was not until 1968 that the section found an organic arrangement; the layout of that time is still largely as it is today.