Museum Of Man And Environment

The Museum of Man and Environment in Terra del Sole has been recently renovated and enlarged. It is divided into 25 rooms according to two visiting routes: the first is of a historical-architectural kind, the second focused on an in-depth study of ethno-anthropological and territorial aspects.

The historical-architectural itinerary runs through the Commissioners’ Hall and seven other rooms that  have recently been restored and in which parts of Renaissance frescoes have been recovered and consolidated.

The route illustrates the origin and development of the fortress city of Terra del Sole, with particular attention to the political-administrative functions played by the Palazzo Pretorio, today the museum’s home. The Hall of the Criminal Court is of considerable importance. After the restoration,  it is now richly frescoed with the noble arms of the Grand Ducal Commissioners who ruled over the Tuscan-Romagna province for over two centuries.

The exhibition offers an in-depth interpretation of the peculiarities of Terra del Sole as a chief town of the territory.

The historical explanation goes back in time by reconstructing  the settlement and lifestyle of the ancient peoples that lived here from the Palaeolithic period to the fall of the Roman Empire.

The ethno-anthropological itinerary continues through further nine rooms, two halls and the cellars of Palazzo Pretorio, and illustrates how people lived and worked until the 1940s.

Through the accurate setting reconstruction, visitors can immerse themselves in the daily life of a century ago: the farmhouse or the sharecropper family with its ancient hierarchies and customs; the farmyard with its rustic rituals or the domestic kitchen with its warm atmosphere; the ‘women’s’ work and popular myths and beliefs; the games, the pastimes and the musical events in the town square.

The reproduction of ancient trades that have now disappeared is interesting due to the variety of tools, which are all original: the carpenter or the blacksmith, the shoemaker, the cordwainer or the tailor. It is followed by the seasonal works of the countryside: plowing, sowing, harvesting, the entire cycle of the vine and grapes, which is completed with an exhibition in the large cellar of the Palazzo.