Museo Granum

Baveno built its fortune on pink granite, and Granum is where that story is told. Housed in the Palazzo Pretorio on the church square, this multimedia exhibition space explains the stone: the granites of the Verbano Cusio Ossola district, the techniques of the picasass stonecutters, and the trade that carried Baveno pink to Europe, the Americas and East Asia.

Why it matters

Granum presents four themes: the district's stone varieties, mineralogical rarities, the stonecutter's craft, and the history of granite exploitation at home and abroad. The Palazzo Pretorio, a medieval public building on the church square, also houses the town library.

What to notice

The exhibition presents Baveno pink granite alongside Montorfano white granite and Mergozzo green granite. It also covers mineralogical rarities, the tools and methods of stonecutting, and the history of granite exports. The official granite history records Nicola Della Casa's industrialisation from 1874, the premiata ditta title of 1879, steam-powered polishing lathes and representative offices in European and American capitals.

Context and history

The museum occupies a hall of the Palazzo Pretorio, whose origins the municipal inventory places in the eleventh century, the same period as the parish church beside it. The building later passed through other uses and now accommodates Granum and the town library. The museum project belongs to the granite heritage network of the area: the portal notes Baveno's partnership with the Ecomuseo del Granito of Montorfano and the territory's place within the Sesia Val Grande UNESCO Global Geopark. Its creation reflects the same impulse as the 1979 Picasass Mural and the stonecutter monument — securing the memory of a trade that shaped the town — but with modern interpretive means rather than figuration.