The preview of the “pieces” exhibited in the Museum room. The latest news: the submarine discovery off the coast of Puglia
BELLUNO. Swords and swordsmen, a piece of history of the Belluno area. This intends to tell the permanent exhibition of the Sala degli Spadai, set up on the second floor of the Civic Museum of Palazzo Fulcis. The exhibition of sidearms, which is part of the Interreg “Klang. Swords of lions and eagles ”, presented yesterday morning as a preview to the press, will be open to the public starting tomorrow.
Carlo Cavalli, curator of the Civic Museum of Belluno, illustrates the overall idea: «With this new room a further piece of the history of Belluno and its territory will be told. We know, from studies intensified in recent years, that the production of sidearms involves a rather large territory, a real district that largely coincides with the current administrative borders of the province of Belluno, but also overflows to Serravalle, Ceneda and Sacile , regarding the presence of sword forges. The centuries that interest us in particular are those between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, the chronological range of which we are most informed by documents and material evidence.
Although production may have started earlier as well. The one on display here is a selection of weapons almost entirely on loan from the Correr Museum in Venice. It is a permanent installation; they will be able to change the weapons inside the display cases, both for the aforementioned reason and because aspects not yet investigated may emerge.
Or there may still be new discoveries, as has already happened. The oldest fragment we exhibit, coming from Formegan, was recently acquired. While off the coast of Mattinata, in the province of Foggia, there was the submarine discovery of two blades certainly produced here in the area; the last administrative steps are underway to obtain these two weapons on loan. The room will be permanent, but in evolution, an open site dedicated to the study, exhibition and enhancement of this type of finds, with the desire to stimulate research on the subject ».
Giovanni Sartori, a scholar of ancient swords, offers a portrait of the master swordsmen of Belluno: “We are talking about a supply chain, an ability of workers who moved from one center to another according to the needs, commercial, availability of raw materials, proximity to access routes for trade. A supply chain where the lion’s share was made by the quality of the finished product, therefore of the mineral and processing technique used. They were master experts, technicians who knew how to work steel and iron, how to make a product that was competitive on the market performant. For a noble who bought the finished sword, reading Andrea Ferrara on the blade meant having an extra status symbol to show off; for a soldier it meant “it could be that it doesn’t break during use”, or being able to count on particular mechanical characteristics. The concept of the hall is to pass on to visitors not only the subject of swords and swordsmen in the Belluno area, but also an idea of research in the campor that it is still open ».
«The Fulcis Museum», comments the councilor for culture Marco Perale, «from the beginning it was conceived as a multitasking container, where to make visible and enhance productive elements that best tell the history of the territory. This was a missing piece. All historians knew that the production of swords was for at least three centuries the main one in the province of Belluno. No Belluno museum had an example of this enormous production. With this work on the bank with other museums in the Veneto and Belluno area, we were finally able to open this space ».
Which can be visited both live and online: «This piece of museum», continues Perale, «wants to enter modernity, to bring these objects into a current usability. We will do a series of guided tours in person, but there will also be the possibility to connect via i-phone, and to have a printed technical guide. Gradually other of the more than 70 Belluno blades already recognized in the Correr collections will alternatively be exhibited and enhanced “