Apuan Ethnological Museum “Don Luigi Bonacoscia”

The Apuan Ethnological Museum “Don Luigi Bonacoscia” is situated in Massa in two buildings near the Madonna degli Oliveti Sanctuary. It houses objects related to popular culture along the Lunigiana coastline, with the aim of handing down to future generations considerable evidence of this former civilization. The museum, founded in 1980 by the priest Luigi Bonacoscia and the Movement for Social Humanism for the Nobility of Human Labour, is divided into 32 sections.

Everyday items are on show that were used in weaving, working the land, in the stables and to cook, as well as pieces associated with more specific activities such as haymaking, making olive oil, pottery, marble and plaster working and chestnut gathering. Period clothing, heaters, farming equipment, washing apparatus, shoe repair tools and winemaking items are also displayed.

In the beginning, the museum consisted of the Masnata private collection, which comprised 300 or so objects unearthed after the World War I in the Lunigiana area, and 100 items from the Movement for Social Humanism collection. The catalogue was broadened due to research conducted by Don Bonacoscia in the Massa and Carrara area and the Versilia and Garfagnana areas.