Museo Civico Colonnello Martina

On Monforte d'Alba's main square, a civic museum preserves the memory of Risorgimento soldier Paolo Domenico Martina and his interests in watercolour painting, ornithology and malacology, alongside local agricultural history and nineteenth-century natural science.

Why it matters

Monforte d'Alba's civic history includes that of a soldier and collector. The Museo Civico intitolato al Colonnello P.D. Martina is devoted to Paolo Domenico Martina, a career officer of the Savoy army who took part in the wars that unified Italy and then spent his last decades investing in this hilltown. The museum matters because it gathers Risorgimento memory, local agricultural history and nineteenth-century natural science under one roof, in a building that was the colonel's own residence. The collection links national history with the life of a Piedmontese community through the possessions and interests of one of its citizens.

What to notice

The six-room museum presents Martina's life, career and interests through a multimedia installation. Its collections include Risorgimento memorabilia connected to his campaigns, materials relating to music, composition and watercolours, and natural-history collections in ornithology and malacology. The same building also holds the Biblioteca Civica, the town's civic library.

Context and history

Paolo Domenico Martina was born in Cravanzana, in the Cuneo hills, on 20 October 1820 and died in Monforte d'Alba on 16 February 1910. A career soldier in the Savoy army, he rose from lieutenant to colonel through promotions granted on the field. His service spanned the whole arc of Italian unification: the First War of Independence of 1848–49 including the battle of Goito, the Crimean campaign of 1855, the Second War of Independence in 1859, the southern campaign of 1860 with Castelfranco, Gaeta and Teano, and the fight against brigandage around Benevento in 1861. Later postings took him to the command of the military district of Reggio Calabria and to Palermo during the unrest of 1866, where he also confronted a cholera epidemic.

After retirement he returned to Piedmont, worked as a school inspector in Alba, and settled in Monforte d'Alba. His strongest legacy here was educational: he left his estate to fund a practical agriculture school that operated in the town from 1927 to 1954. The museum was created for the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, when the municipality organized Martina's legacy in the palace on the main square. The museum and civic library are managed by the association MO.MA.Li – Monforte Martina Libri.