Antonio Mordini Civic Museum of the Territory

The Civic Museum of the Territory of Barga is housed in the medieval Pretorio Palace, once the residence of Barga's commissioners and Podestà. The Museum is named after Antonio Mordini, an Italian politician who opposed the Grand Ducal government. After being exiled and pursuing a career of great torment, he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom by Umberto I in 1896.

Inside the museum, the layout is didactic, and the rooms, organized to trace the history of the area from prehistoric to more recent times, are adorned with ancient frescoes.

In the first room, the earliest history of the area is documented, with the display of fossil finds from various prehistoric eras and archaeological artifacts, such as Ligurian tombs from neighboring localities and Etruscan bronze statues from the nearby Castelvenere cave.

Medieval and Renaissance evidence is illustrated in the following rooms. These eras had significant artistic implications for Barga: suffice it to mention the Duomo, located right next to the museum and featuring architectural elements of great beauty, from Romanesque to Gothic.

Descending into the basement of the Palace, visitors will find themselves in the rooms formerly used as prisons. Along the way, one can read the numerous inscriptions and graffiti left by prisoners in the cells and observe a reconstruction of the torture room: a way to understand how, in the past, the way justice was conceived and exercised was quite different from our own.