History museum · 19th–20th century · Vicenza, Veneto

Museum of the Risorgimento and of the Contemporary Age

The Museum of the Risorgimento and of the Contemporary Age in Vicenza preserves documents, artefacts, and artworks tracing the city’s involvement in the struggle for Italian unification and its subsequent history through the twentieth century. Housed within the historic fabric of the city, its collections span uniforms, weapons, proclamations, and personal memorabilia from the Risorgimento campaigns of 1848 and 1866, continuing through the two World Wars to the postwar Republican era.

At a glance

Type: History and civic museum
Period: Collections spanning 1848 to the late 20th century
Style: Historic civic building
Location: Vicenza, Veneto, Italy
Coordinates: 45.4078° N, 11.8769° E

Overview

The Museum of the Risorgimento and of the Contemporary Age is one of Vicenza’s key civic heritage institutions, dedicated to the political and military history of unified Italy from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Its permanent collections document how the people of Vicenza and the surrounding Veneto participated in the patriotic uprisings that eventually led to the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Temporary exhibitions regularly complement the permanent display, connecting historical events to present-day civic identity.

History

Vicenza played a direct role in the Risorgimento: the city witnessed fierce fighting during the Piedmontese and Austrian campaigns of 1848–49, and the Veneto was finally annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1866 following the Third War of Independence. The museum was founded to collect and display the material evidence of these events, preserving the memory of local volunteers, military officers, and political figures who shaped the region’s path to unification. Over subsequent decades the collection expanded to encompass memorabilia from the First and Second World Wars, reflecting the city’s continued sacrifice in national conflicts.

What you see

Visitors encounter an extensive array of period artefacts: uniforms and weapons from the mid-nineteenth-century campaigns, proclamations and printed ephemera, portraits of Risorgimento figures such as Garibaldi and Cavour, and photographs documenting the wars of the twentieth century. Regimental flags, military decorations, and personal diaries round out the collection, giving an intimate sense of individual lives shaped by national history. The museum’s layout follows a broadly chronological narrative, guiding visitors from the revolutionary 1840s through to the post-World War II decades.

Cultural significance

As a repository of Veneto’s path to Italian nationhood, the museum occupies an important place in the region’s cultural memory, complementing Vicenza’s better-known Palladian architectural heritage with a civic and political dimension. Its collections are a primary resource for historians of the Risorgimento and of twentieth-century Italy, preserving documents and objects that might otherwise have been lost.

Practical information

Location: Vicenza, Veneto, Italy
Hours: Check official website for current opening times and admission fees
Admission: Check official website

Getting there

Vicenza is served by frequent rail connections from Venice (approx. 50 minutes) and Verona (approx. 30 minutes). From Vicenza railway station the historic centre, where the museum is located, is reachable on foot in roughly 10–15 minutes. City buses also connect the station to the centre. By car, Vicenza is on the A4 motorway (Venice–Milan axis); follow signs for the historic centre and use designated parking areas.

Sources & resources

In the Noble Floor of the Pedrocchi factory there is the Museum of the Risorgimento and of the Contemporary Age, which documents the facts and protagonists of a century and a half of Paduan and national history, from the fall of the Venetian Republic (1797) to the promulgation of the Italian Constitution, which took place on 1 January 1948.


One hundred and fifty years of history in which the city of Padua has often played a very important role, if not as an absolute protagonist, not only for the occurrence of events of historical significance, but also for the presence, in different eras, of illustrious personalities .



The Pedrocchi noble floor immediately appeared to be the perfect location to host this new museum. Here, on February 8, 1848, the students of the nearby Athenaeum rose up against the Austrian occupiers: this revolt was the premise, in Italy, of the First War of Independence and, in Europe, of the year that saw revolutions and popular uprisings flare up in numerous nations. Traces of the shots fired by the Austrians against the students barricaded inside the Caf&eacute; are still evident in the White Room of the historic building.
In 1866 the Veneto was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy: the famous &quot;Obbedisco&quot; by Giuseppe Garibaldi, a historic act of that Third and last War of Independence, arrived from Bezzecca from Bezzecca.



Padua was also a protagonist in the years of the Great War: &quot;Capital at the front&quot;, seat of the Supreme Command and of the Allied Missions and subsequently of the signature of the Armistice, signed at Villa Giusti on November 3, 1918. That same day the Bersaglieri, disembarked from the destroyer Bold in the liberated Trieste, they waved the Italian banner now exhibited in the Museum.


The following years are characterized by the inauguration of the first Fair and the construction of the Altare della Patria, placed between Palazzo Moroni, the seat of the municipality, and the Bo, the ancient seat of the University.



The Fascist period is remembered in the museum by the images of the assembly, in Prato della Valle, for the speech that Benito Mussolini gave on 24 September 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, by a squadron&#39;s backbone and a bronze sculpture by Paolo Boldrin. The Racial Laws of that same year struck 500 Paduan Jews and, among them, many personalities of the University.


Thirteen gold medals for Military Valor testify to the noble participation of some Paduan citizens in the Second World War.


Still alive in the memory of many are the brutality of the Charity Band, the special department of the Republican Band directly dependent on the SS (period of the Resistance). For the contribution made to the cause by the professors and students of the University, the University received, the only case in Italy, the Gold Medal for Military Valor. The protagonists were Concept Marchesi and Egidio Meneghetti and with them the 117 teachers and students who fell for freedom.


The memory of 11 March 1944 could not be missing, when an allied bomb hit the frescoes by Andrea Mantegna in the Ovetari Chapel.
The exhibition is completed by a selection of period films from the Istituto Luce in Rome and the Imperial War Museum in London.

https://culturalheritageonline.com/places/museum-of-the-risorgimento-and-of-the-contemporary-age-l4685/

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