Mu.Sa. – Museo di Salò

Housed since 2015 in the former monastic complex of Santa Giustina, Mu.Sa. gathers the civic collections of Salò under one roof: painting from the Venetian centuries, scientific instruments and anatomical preparations, Roman finds from the shore, and a documented section on the Italian Social Republic that made the town infamous between 1943 and 1945.

Why it matters

Mu.Sa. is the museum through which Salò explains itself. Inaugurated in June 2015 inside the deconsecrated monastic complex of Santa Giustina a step above the lakefront, it is run by the Fondazione Opera Pia Carità Laicale e Istituto Lodroniano, an institution rooted in the town's charitable and educational history. The official site organises the visit into art sections, from "L'arte di una capitale (1426-1797)", devoted to the centuries when Salò led the Gardesana under Venice, through works between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the civic collection of drawings, alongside scientific collections that include the weather-seismic observatory material and the anatomical preparations of Doctor Rini. The archaeological gallery of the Mucchi museum, the cathedral's Graduals and a permanent section on the Italian Social Republic bring together distinct chapters of the town's history.

What to notice

The building itself sets the tone: thick vaulted rooms of the old monastery, dim and cool, into which the displays are fitted rather than imposed. The art galleries include paintings from the town's centuries as the Gardesana capital and a civic drawing collection. The scientific rooms preserve the instruments of the Lodronian observatory tradition and the Rini anatomical preparations, a sobering, very nineteenth-century branch of study. In the archaeology section, the finds from the Lugone necropolis, excavated on the edge of town, and stone inscriptions from the surrounding territory anchor the lake's Roman settlement. The RSI section documents the eighteen months in which Salò served as the administrative stage of the Republic of Salò, with documents and images treated historically rather than rhetorically. The upper rooms also host temporary exhibitions.

Context and history

The museum is the product of a long civic accumulation. The artworks entered the town's patrimony through the religious suppression and donations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the scientific collections descend from the Lodronian institute's observatory and teaching collections; and the archaeology was formed around Anton Maria Mucchi's bequest and the excavations of the 1960s and 1970s. Installing these holdings in the abandoned Santa Giustina complex returned a decaying monastic block to the town and created the covered exhibition space Salò had lacked. The managing foundation also administers the historical collections of the Blue Ribbon museum in the same complex.