MuST - Museo delle Scienze e del Territorio

On the wooded shoulder of Monteluco above Spoleto, MuST brings together rocks and fossils from the Toni collection, zoological material associated with naturalist Bernardino Ragni, a seismometer and a weather station.

Why it matters

MuST is a didactic-scientific museum of the Comune di Spoleto, focused on the natural features of the Spoletino area and how they changed through time. Its collections include rocks, fossils and minerals assembled by Conte Toni, and zoological material gathered by Bernardino Ragni, a scholar of Umbria's mammal fauna. The museum's educational work connects local natural history with scientific observation.

What to notice

The displays follow geological eras, from the Paleozoic to the present, before narrowing to the local landscape: mountains, springs, caves, rivers and the history of the Spoletino basin. The Toni collection supplies the mineral and fossil material; the Ragni collection documents Apennine fauna. A digital kiosk gives access to atlases of Umbrian fauna and scientific writings by Ragni and Conte Toni. The museum also hosts a seismometric station of the University of Perugia's School Shake network, installed in 2023, and a weather station added in 2024.

Context and history

The museum is housed in the Complesso San Matteo at Largo Ermini on Monteluco. Its collections reflect the work of Conte Toni and Bernardino Ragni, whose studies of central Apennine fauna remain part of the museum's character. In 2023, the University of Perugia's School Shake project placed a Raspberry Shake seismometer here as part of a central Italian network that also supports science education; a meteorological station followed in 2024. The Comune di Spoleto accredits MuST as an Ecolaboratorio and Environmental Education Centre.