Museo del Risorgimento and Piazza Carducci: Attraction informations
The Risorgimento Museum (Museo del Risorgimento) was inaugurated in Bologna in 1893, in a moment in which the city was engaged in building cultural sites that were to connect the city’s history with the history of Italy. The collections that can be found in the museum where first placed in the ground floor of Casa Carducci, former house of the famous poet Giosué Carducci facing its namesake square.
One of Piazza Carducci square’s sides is called by Via del Piombo, whose name comes from the presence of an old church of the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Pietà that treasured an image of the Pietà on a lead sheet, found in the beginning of the 500’s. The poet’s former house was in fact built over the remains of this ancient place of worship.
During the recent restorations many remains of this old oratory have been found. The oratory was used until 1798 , where it was closed by Napoleon’s troops. Carducci lived here from 1890 until the time of his death in 1907.
The choice of setting here the museum seemed appropriate as Carducci represented, to the curator’s eyes, the perfect representation of the middle class of the late 19th-century, and therefore the same could be said of his former home.
The monument to Carducci
The
exterior of the building was embellished with
a monument in the poet’s honour and inaugurated in 1928 in the presence of the Royal House of the Savoia.
Leaving the monument before our eyes, we can find on our left-hand side the representation of Love towards Nature, chanted by the poet in many of his works. On the right-hand side we find instead an imposing horse ridden by Liberty and accompanied by Soul and Rhythm.
In the centre of this
amazing and complicated composition, the poet is clearly represented with a final triptych representing the synthesis of Carducci’s wottk. Reading from left to right, the triptych starts with his earlier works, passing through the “Barbarian Odes” and finally giving way to the songs and poems regarding the history of his native country.
The museum’s collection
The museum is divided in
5 different sections, enriched by a modern library which has become
a reference point for students of the Bolognese Risorgimento. Its 5 sections, organized in chronological time, cover the era of Napoleon, the period of Restauration, the period covering from the Unification of Italy to World War I, and finally Bologna’s involvement in the war.
The objects treasured in the museum’s rooms belong to the
army world, therefore we can admire different weapons, flags, uniforms, but also symbols used by patriots, manifests and posters and propaganda. Some of these were sent to Turin in 1884 for the Expo in an exhibition dedicated to the National Risorgimento.
