The museums of Sardinia offer an exhibition that ranges from prehistory to contemporary art, passing through the narration of the territory, popular traditions and craftsmanship. Below are the main museums on the island.
The National Archaeological Museum, Cagliari
The National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari is the largest and most important museum in Sardinia. The materials and exhibits on display date back to prehistoric and Byzantine eras and are spread over 4 floors. The best statues of the Giants of Mont’e Prama are also kept here.
On the first floor, you start with finds that represent Sardinian prehistoric cultures starting from the Neolithic, continue with the Nuragic civilization and with a collection of specimens of bronzes and end with the Punic and Roman civilizations.
The other floors are dedicated to specific archaeological sites such as the Su Nuraxi di Barumini Nuragic complex, the Sanctuary of Antas, and the Phoenician cities of Sulci and Monte Sirai.
National Museum Sanna, Sassari
The National Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum G. A. Sanna, always in Sassari, is instead the principal of the northern area of the island and in addition to the archaeological section it also includes the ethnographic one and the pictorial one. Here there is the hall of Monte d’Accoddi, an archaeological site of great importance in the Sassari area, linked to the Mesopotamian ziqqurat.
In the city of Nuoro there is the National Archaeological Museum. The findings collected are mostly from the Nuragic age and the exhibition has a marked educational imprint, with some reconstructions of archaeological sites.
The Archaeological Museum, Olbia
The Archaeological Museum of Olbia tells of the Phoenician, Greek, Punic and Roman period of Olbia as a port city. Here there are shipwrecks from 450 AD and the Middle Ages and the 180 ° projection of the Vandals’ attack on the city.
MAN – Art Museum, Nuoro
The MAN – Art Museum of the province of Nuoro organizes various temporary thematic exhibitions each year on the major artists of the twentieth century and on the works of art by Sardinian masters such as the sculptor Francesco Ciusa and the painter and illustrator Giuseppe Biasi.
Museum Of Contemporary Art, Calasetta
In Calasetta, on the other hand, is the Museum of Contemporary Art, where the art collections that express the European artistic trends of the 1960s and 1970s are preserved.
Logudoro Meilogu Foundation Museum Of Modern Art, Banari
The Logudoro Meilogu Foundation Museum of Modern Art is located in an ancient palace in Banari. Here you find the works of pictorial and sculptural art of Sardinian artists and of the Italian peninsula of the last fifty years. There is also a Sardinian terracotta and bronze collection.
The Two Art Museums Of Ulassai
In Sardinia there is a long list of museums with a particular charm, which talk about the territory and the island culture. In Ulassai, in the Ogliastra region, there are for example two important museums, the Museo Stazione dell’Arte and the Museum of Contemporary Art in the open air, with works by the artist Maria Lai.
Orgosolo And San Sperate
Orgosolo and San Sperate are defined museum towns, one for the presence of numerous murals for the streets of the town that tell the historical events, the other both for the murals and for the pictorial works and the sculptures that furnish the urban space inspired by the themes of rural life.
Museum Of The Territory Sa Corona Arrubia
An other important tourist resource is the Museum of the Territory Sa Corona Arrubia of Lunamatrona, with botanical, faunistic and geological sections.
In Sa Corona Arrubia there is an exhibition area of about two hundred traditional Sardinian toys, made entirely by hand. The collection is part of an educational path in which participants are taught to build toys and is explained their value and use in the past.
Museum Of Sardinia Textile Art, Samugheo
At the Museum of Sardinian Textile Art in Samugheo you can do weaving internships. As well as trying out a real weaving test to see closely the mastery needed to create a textile product. With a small frame provided by the organizers you can make a small souvenir to take with you.
Carbone Museum, Carbonia
Linked to the mining world, one of the must-see museums in Sardinia is the Carbone Museum in Carbonia, a city founded in 1937 by the fascist regime. It is a mining site converted into a museum. The educational museum is located in the mine of Serbariu, a mining site active from 1937 to 1964, which, following the closure of the mines, underwent rapid deterioration until it was reconverted into a museum in 2006. The visit includes indoor venues, outdoor routes and an underground tunnel.
Museum Of Mining Art, Iglesias
The Museum of Mining Art is housed in the former mining school of Iglesias. The exhibition allows you to view machinery, tools, materials, photos and period documents, but above all the underground educational gallery: a useful experience to understand the different mineral extraction processes, the life and work of the miner. Iglesias, as well as the whole surrounding area, is one of the most important mining basins in all of Italy, and the Museum of Mining Art was born to learn about the scientific and cultural aspects of this reality that saw its birth around the middle of the nineteenth century, a great development until the First World War and then a slow decline until the 1960s.
Civic Museum, Cabras
The Civic Museum of Cabras collects the archaeological remains of the Sinis region, among the most important archaeological territories of Sardinia, which have returned among others the Giants of Mont’e Prama and the oldest grains of vine and melon of the western Mediterranean. The Sinis Peninsula is in fact one of the most interesting historical areas of Sardinia thanks to its millenary history. In fact, the famous Giants of Mont’e Prama, found in the 70s in the homonymous locality, statues of 2 meters and 2 and a half meters, are just some of the most important finds in the Sinis. The Museum was inaugurated in 1997 and houses numerous archaeological finds: It starts from prehistory (Neolithic and Copper Age) and reaches the Roman age.
Museum Of Mediterranean Masks, Mamoiada
The Museum of Mediterranean Masks in Mamoiada is the meeting place between the masks of the local carnival, which, starting from the town Mamoiada with its traditional masks expands to all the Mediterranean regions.
The museum is dedicated to the carnival masks and costumes in Barbagia and other Mediterranean areas (Spain, Croatia, upper Italy among others).
The Museum is located in Mamoiada, a town famous throughout the world for the Mamuthones and Issohadores masks, figures that stand out for their different roles in the procession: the Mamuthones proceed slowly, almost weary, and advancing shaking the cowbells, while the Issohadores animate the parade by giving orders to the Mamuthones and throwing their rope towards the crowd, capturing young women.
Nuragic Complex Of Barumini
The large Nuragic complex of Barumini is located in the historic center, entirely under the Casa Zapata, an ancient noble residence of the Sardinian-Aragonese barons built in 1500. It is organized in three sections: Archaeological, Historical-Archival and Ethnographic.
Costume Museum, Nuoro
Recently renovated, the Costume Museum in Nuoro offers a wide ethnographic collection, including customs and traditions. From bread to jewellery, from country parties to work tools, from traditional clothes to amulets.
Compendium Of Garibaldi, Caprera
The Compendium of Garibaldi in Caprera, opened to the public in 1976, is among the most visited museums in Sardinia. This is the farmhouse in which Garibaldi retired to devote himself to agriculture and where he spent the last 25 years of his life. With its countless memorabilia, the compendium also houses a large garden in which the granite tomb of Garibaldi is located.
The Hero of the Two Worlds came for the first time to Caprera, an island in the Maddalena Archipelago, in 1849 and then returned in 1856 where it first bought a part and then the whole island of Caprera and here decided to live the last decades of the his life until 1882 when he died.
Here there is his tomb and the White House now used as a museum with furniture, paintings, portraits, weapons, flags and other memorabilia all distributed in the various rooms of the House.
Mediterranean Weaving Museum, Castelsardo
In Castelsardo there is one of the most visited museums in Sardinia: the Mediterranean Weaving Museum. Located precisely inside the spectacular Castello dei Doria, the Weaving Museum is an incredible collection of craftsmanship made by weaving vegetable fibers from all over the Mediterranean area.
The craftsmen of the town have cleverly woven the fibers with the result of beautiful baskets, sieves, pots and mats and it is also possible to admire these craft products in the numerous shops in the historic center of Castelsardo. Don’t miss a visit to the Castello dei Doria.
Ethnographic Museum, Aggius
In the town of Aggius there is the largest ethnographic museum in Sardinia that contains the traditions, culture and history of the Gallura people from the 1600s.
With the background of the local choral singing, we visit the large exhibition spaces with the reconstruction of the traditional house, the costumes of the time, the ancient crafts (working of the cork, of the granite, the work of the shoemaker, the blacksmith, the carpenter and so Street).
The museum also houses the Permanent Exhibition of the Carpet and in the dedicated room there is a demonstration of the weaving of this precious artefact.
Banditian Museum, Aggius
In Aggius, a visit to the Banditian Museum is also recommended to learn about the period of murders, thefts from cattle and ambushes that crossed the Gallura area for about 3 centuries, from the mid-16th century to the mid-19th century.
Multimedia Museum Of The Canto A Tenore, Bitti
The Multimedia Museum of the Canto a Tenore of Bitti was inaugurated in 2005 and allows the visitor to learn about a song that is unique in the world which is the traditional song, inserted among other things by UNESCO among the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity for its beauty and uniqueness: the voices imitate the bellow of the ox, the bleating of the sheep and the verse of the lamb while the soloist personifies the man who managed to dominate nature.
The museum blends tradition and multimedia in 4 rooms: the first has workstations with screens and headphones, the second has four audiovisual columns placed in a circle (the same arrangement as the singer), the third has numerous CDs to learn about the differences in the songs of every part of Sardinia, and finally the fourth room has video clips.
Deleddiano Museum, Nuoro
The building of the Deleddiano Museum, in Nuoro, is the birthplace of Grazia Deledda (1871-1936), a Sardinian writer born in Nuoro, winner in 1926 of the Nobel Prize for literature (first Italian woman to receive this recognition).
His birthplace was used as a museum in the historic center of Nuoro and is a palace dating back to the second half of the 1800s and the museum was established in 1983.
It is divided into 10 rooms in 3 floors and is represented: the Nuorese social environment of the time, the kitchen, the pantry, the writer’s room, a memory room, a room relating to the Roman period, one relating to the Nobel Prize, another in Nuoro and the literary movement of the time. Finally you can admire the courtyard, with 2 old oak trees, now a summer venue for cultural events.
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