Museo Etnografico Podenzana

The Ethnographic Museum, entitled ethnographer, naturalist, musician Giovanni Podenzana (1864-1943), is housed in the new premises of the former fifteenth-century oratory of San Bernardino of Siena, in the heart of La Spezia. The more than 3,500 ethno-anthropological objects gathered between the late 800 and early ‘900 relate to the traditions and customs of the community lunigianesi (from the eighteenth to the twentieth century) and the native cultures of Oceania, New Guinea, the Americas, China, Japan and Africa (nineteenth century). Formed in the late 800 fully positivism within the “Civic Museum” of La Spezia, the largest ethno-anthropological collection also welcomed a local nature section and outside Europe, a historical section Risorgimento and a section of physical anthropology. Considered one of the most important d ‘

The oratory was built in 1445 near the “Porta Genova”, which from the oldest part of La Spezia leading high Vara Valley and Genoa, and included elements which no longer visible, including a 25-meter tower was demolished in 1767. from 1812, no longer used for worship, underwent numerous subsequent changes dictated by the different uses: the seat of the City Council and the seat of the Public Administration of La Spezia. A major renovation was promoted to the Year of Jubilee, in 2000, in order to gather the sacred art collections of the Diocesan Museum Spezia. Since 2005 hosts and it exposes to the public part of the collections of the historic towns Ethnographic Museum.