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Torcello Museum
The history of the museum
began in 1870 when Luigi Torelli, prefect of Venice, purchased the Palazzo del Consiglio
to use it to house a centre of archaeological artefacts from Torcello, the adjacent
islands and nearby mainland. In 1872 the building was given by Torelli to the province of
Venice, thus the Provincial Museum was founded, the direction being entrusted to the
researcher Nicoḷ Battaglini. In 1887 Cesare Augusto Levi took his place: he continued
the collection of findings which were found on the location and the surroundings and he
added others to the Museum which he gathered during his travels, especially in Rome. In
1887 he bought Palazzo dellArchivio, restored it and housed the archaeological
collection there, naming it Museo dellestuario, and donating it to the
provincial authorities. On May 14th , the Museo
Provinciale was inaugurated.
In 1909 Levi was succeeded by Luigi Conton who discovered various necropolis
in Adria from where he probably brought some findings to Torcello. Between
1928 and 1930 the collections were rearranged under the management of Adolfo
Callegari, the director until 1948. Thanks to him interventions of inventory,
cataloguing and restoration were undertaken and the publication, in 1930,
of the catalogue Il museo di Torcello. In 1949 the direction was
entrusted to Giulia Fogolari who, with the assistance of Guido Zattera,
supervised the museum till 1997.In 1974, after a radical restoration of
Palazzo del Consiglio and of the objects exibited there, the medieval and
modern sections were opened. In the following years the Palazzo dellArchivio
was restored and the present archaeological section was inaugurated in the
summer of 1990 with a new layout
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