The Ligurian Archeological Museum of Pegli is hosted inside Villa Durazzo-Pallavicini. The villa was donated in 1928 to the Municipality of Genoa by the heirs of the Pallavicini with the constraint of use for cultural purposes and at the beginning of the thirties was decided to spending at the seat of the civic museum of archeology. Retrieved numerous finds already dispersed in various museums, in particular those brought to the Turin Antiquities Museum in the early decades of the Twentieth Century, the collections were expanded with all new finds found in Liguria. All the materials were catalogd and rearranged in collaboration with Luigi Cardini (1898-1971), the greatest Italian scholars of prehistory.
The museum was inaugurated in 1936, but during the second world war the collections were transferred to the Badia di Tiglieto. The museum was reopened in 1953, using in this phase of collaboration Luigi Bernabò Brea together with the same hinges; they built an exhibition that chronicles the life, the occupations and the economy of the peoples who inhabited the Liguria between one hundred thousand years ago and the end of the Roman Empire and the climate change occurring in this period, with finds coming from the caves of the Riviera di Ponente (Balzi Rossi, the Caves of Toirano, Caves of Finalese), tombs of Ligurian warriors of the età of iron and the funeral of the pre-roman necropolis of Genoa. Next to these are exposed also testimonies of the cityà Liguri in roman times, Egyptian antiquities; coming from the collection d’Albertis and a collection of antique vases donated to the city by Prince Oddone of Savoy. The exhibition path, over two thousand years expanded and equipped with numerous tutorials, develops through 13 halls, describing according to a chronological order the various epochs of prehistory in Liguria:
- glaciation Würm (between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago). This period date back stone tools and bone found in the Fairies Cave (Finale Ligure) and the Balzi Rossi (Ventimiglia) and a skull of cave bear found in the cave of the Lastore (Toirano);
- Paleolithic tombs, among the mostù conspicuous and best preserved of Europe to which the più ancient, dating back to about 24,000 years ago, is that said of Prince coming from the cave of Arene Candide, always in Finale;
- Neolithic Tools polished stone and chipped, ornaments and ceramic objects found in the caves of Finalese and Albenganese and the neolithic burials of the cave of the Pollera (Finale Ligure);
- The statue-stele of Zignago, the first of many found in Lunigiana, enigmatic depictions of heroes-warriors of the age of copper;
- objects in copper, bronze and Ceramics from villages of the Ligurian Apennines-piedmont and tombs of warriors of the età iron found in various localitiesà of Liguria;
- Funerary objects coming from the vast necropolis in which, starting from the 500 a.C., were buried the first inhabitants of Genoa and that stretched from the plane of Sant’Andrea on the homonymous hill and to the area where would then sort the church of S. Stefano;
- bronze Table of Polcevera. Found in 1506 in Pedemonte Serra Riccò, returns the text of a judgment issued by the Roman Senate in 117 B.C. and relating to the delimitation of boundaries between the Genuates, the inhabitants of Genoa and the Viturii Langenses, who lived in the high Val Polcevera. In the margin of the judgment the table documents the activitiesà economic (mainly agriculture and pastoralism) of the tribesù Liguri of the genoese hinterland in the II century a.C.;
- Statue of Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding degl’underworld, found in the area of Jumper (today piazza Dante), ancient entrance to the cityà from Levante;
- In Egyptian Room are exposed the mummy Pasherienaset, Egyptian priest lived in saitica period; (VII century a.C.), with the sarcophagus in painted wood and other objects from the burial;
- Roman marble, dating from the II century B.C. and V century d.C.;
- Complete the review the precious and eclectic collection of Prince Oddone of Savoy, son of Vittorio Emanuele II, who in his premature death leaves the city a considerable heritage of Greek vases, bronzes, ceramics, glasses and roman gems from different archaeological areas of Italy: The collection includes objects Etruscans and others from Sardinia, from the Magna Greece and from the archaeological areas of northern Italy.
Opening times:
Tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday 9-19;
Saturday and Sunday 10-19;
Monday closed
archligure@comune.genova.it