The Naval Museum, La Spezia

The Naval Museum

The Naval Museum was founded in 1923 and was originally housed in the former Naval Arsenal, but was moved to the neighbouring building in 1958. The history of the museum goes back a lot further than the 20th century, however. In 1430, Amedeo VII of Savoia set up the province�s very first naval museum in Villafranca, at Provenza. The museum was then transferred to Cagliari and later Genova, only arriving in Spezia in 1870, where it was finally opened to the public in 1923.
The Naval Museum is set up in a number of vast rooms, spread out over two floors, and is organised both chronologically and typologically. The impressive collection is made up of over 150 naval models and 6500 antique relics, as well as technical manuals and various official papers.
The ground floor hosts a display of figureheads, which used to adorn the prows of the ships. The collection includes the figurehead used by the garibaldi ship Baleno between 1860 and 1861, the Atalantana, which used to head the torpedo boat known as La Veloce, and the figurehead that used to belong to the Neapolitan frigate La Minerva. The museum also boasts a collection of old ships, dating back to Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian, Roman and Viking times. Models include those used by Columbus and various vessels dating back to the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The arms exhibition features a number of different models of the Armstrong cannon, a type of torpedo known as �the pig�, which was used in World War II, �the Mas�, which was used to sink the Austrian vessel �Szent Estvan� during the Great War, and a heavy machine gun with rotating barrel, which was stolen from the Chinese Boxers during the Chinese Revolution in 1901.
The upper floor hosts a collection of relics, including artefacts recovered from the Doria Stella battleship, which was used by the Duke of Abruzzi during his polar expedition between 1899 and 1900, various transmission devices used by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897, as well as a series of flags, sails, chronometers and sextants.

Museums of the La Spezia

The Naval Museum

The Naval Museum

Sleeping and eating in La Spezia

What to visit in La Spezia