Musei dei Licei di Piazza

The Museums of the Piazza High Schools in Mondovì preserve historic teaching collections in the former Franciscan convent that houses the Liceo Vasco Beccaria Govone. The collections include scientific instruments, natural-history specimens and a substantial school library.

Why it matters

The museums document how science and humanities were taught in a Piedmontese provincial school over two centuries. Their collections also preserve objects linked to Giovan Battista Beccaria, an eighteenth-century physicist from Mondovì whose experiments contributed to the study of electricity.

What to notice

The physics collection includes about three hundred instruments, among them a pneumatic pump and electrostatic friction machine associated with Beccaria. The library contains early printed books, Napoleonic-era posters and materials documenting later political periods. A natural-history collection of around seven hundred specimens, mostly local and dating to the first half of the twentieth century, is arranged into nine broad groups.

Context and history

The collections developed within Mondovì's historic licei, housed in the former convent of Nostra Donna. The physics instruments preserve a connection with Giovan Battista Beccaria, while the library and natural-history holdings record changing educational practices and local scholarship. The museums are part of the civic and cultural heritage of Mondovì Piazza.