collections

Museum sections:
Secular and Religious Institutions.This sector documents the social initiatives, both secular and religious, of Badia Polesine.
Among the most important objects:
the bell of the Council of XVII cen., that marked the significant moments of public life;
the statue of Saint Teobaldo, patron of the town;
documents inherent in the theatres of XIX cen.; the mill “Finzi”, an important trade enterprise ended in the first half of XX cen.

Old pottery of Badia.
There are objects of the local craftsmen, who worked in the boccaleria (pottery shop) and in the workshop, producing useful objects for the different social classes.
The pieces of pottery were found during the excavations for the infrastructures in Badia; they belong to the period between XV and XIX cen.

Risorgimento.
Objects, posters, photographs document the events of Risorgimento that ended with a plebiscite for the annexation of Veneto to Italy in 1866.There are important weapons used in the first insurrectional movements, the equipment of the soldiers in Garibaldi’s army, among which there are Romeo and Pasquale Turolla, two soldiers from Badia who took part in the Thousand expedition.

The time of Umberto I.
In this section there are uniforms and weapons of the time, that are to be considered as testimonies of the evolution of the military arms and of the costumes.

Italian Colonial Adventures.
This section presents the events from the expansion of Italy in Africa in XIX cen. to the war against Ethiopia in 1935-36.Here we can see rare uniforms and equipment, as the uniform of an indigenous soldier of the corps, whose name was Ascari, and an Ethiopian dignitary’s garment.

War 1915-18.
There are the uniforms and equipment of the opposing armies, helmets and headgears, gas masks, means of defence against the chemical weapons used for mass destruction. Documents dealing with the air force complete this section. Among the pilots there was Aldo Finzi from Badia, who took part in the flying on Vienna with Gabriele D’Annunzio.

World War II.
The uniforms and equipment of the armies participating in the conflict are as complete as possible. Besides there are documents of air raids, of the partisan phenomenon, of the captivity of Italians in various countries.

Ancient history.
The objects exhibited come from surface gatherings in the area “Le Giare” in Salvaterra, a hamlet near Badia Polesine, while the medieval objects and the ones from XVI and XVII cen. were found in the old town during the excavation work for the common good and in the river Adige.

Hunt and photography.
In this section you can see a collection of old shotguns and a collection of old cameras.

Free time.
In a show case dedicated to sport we meet two local sportsmen, Aldo and Gino Finzi, who stood out at nationwide level in the early 1900s. There is the equipment for pompieri, a volunteer fire brigade, forerunner of the firemen.o.

Animals and fossils.
A collection of stuffed animals and fossils.

The mill of Adige.
There is an important miniature of a mill of Adige, rebuilt in scale of about 1:9 , and a piece of the heavy chain that kept the last mill of Adige at anchor ashore in Badia. It sank in 1963.

Bonsignori room.
A room that houses a great canvas (234 x 722) painted by Girolamo Bonsignori for the convent of S: Benedetto di Po (Mantova) in XV cen. and some paintings by artists from Badia of the XIX cen., such as Diodato Massimo, Amedeo Bianchi and Mario Capuzzo.