Things to do in Province of Macerata, Marche: The Best History Museums

The School Museum "Paolo and Ornella Ricca" has a large variety of materials, ranging from textbooks and reading books, notebooks, diaries, children's periodicals, writing instruments. The Museum offers a rich programme of educational activities and currently it houses the permanent exhibition >: propaganda in the primary school during the fascism

The museum complex of Sarnano is located in Via Leopardi, in the medieval town, inside the former convent of Santa Chiara. Inside the museum you can find the Pinacoteca, the Museum of Sacred Art, the Museum of Ancient and Modern Weapons, the Museum of the Avifauna of the Sibillini and the Martelli Museum. The collection of works by the Sarnanese painter Mariano Gavasci is displayed inside the Palazzo del Municipio, also in Via Leopardi. Currently some areas of the museum are not open to the public, but the Civic Art Gallery is completely open to visitors and also the Collazione di Martelli: the other sections, now closed for works, will be reopened soon.

The project Ecomuseo delle Case di Terra Villa Ficana aims to be a tool for local development which carries out activities in the territory by integrating culture, environment and arts and crafts, with the aim of enhancing the identity and memory of the local community. In particular the eco points to the conservation and development of a unique environment within the city of Macerata. Involved in this ambitious goal, together with the municipality of Macerata and Macerata museums are the associations Gru.Ca Onlus, Associazione Culturale Oz, Terrae Onlus, Associazione Internazionale Citta della Terra Cruda, with the direct participation of the inhabitants who provided more documentation, to make a historical reconstruction of the place, the customs and common life in the past and present, through interviews and collection of documents.

This fortified farmhouse was erected in the middle of the ninth century and it looked like a tower-house whose facilities served to shelter agricultural commodities. The Castle of La Rancia was enlarged in the fourteenth century by order of Rudolph II dof Varano and it was also used as a residence. The keep , about 25 meters high, is divided into six flooers connected by a spiral staircase. In the ealry fifteen century, Braccio da Montone, a distinguished leader from Perugia, arrived in the Marca to fight against Ludovico Migliorati, Lord of Fermo, and took up quarters in the castle. In the 1430s and 1440s Francesco Sforza, his wife and part of his army were accomomodated in the castle, where Niccolo Piccinio signs a peace treaty in 1442 in the service of the Pope. One of the most important dates to remember are 2 and 3 of May 1815 when all around the castle was the scene of a raging battle between the French army of Gioacchino Murat, king of Naples and Napoleon's brother-in-law, and the Austrian troops of General Federico Bianchi.