Museo del Risorgimento e della Resistenza

The Risorgimento and Resistance Museum is closely linked to the traditions, culture and moral life of the city and province. The material held and the location of the museum itself explain why it contains memories of important Italian events and people that were at the centre of the city’s history. The Ambellicopoli hill, the site of the museum’s Villa Guiccioli premises, was where the heroic resistance of 1848 took place. The people of Vicenza defended the city from here with volunteers from various other parts of the peninsula. The collections held by the museum are extremely varied and interesting; even a short list can help give an idea of this wealth. The main nucleus of the documentation consists of printed publications, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, portraits, pictures, prints, diaries, announcements, proclamations, decrees, private deeds, coins, medals, decorations, civil and military maps, firearms, bayonets, swords, flags and various kinds of military object. It is not difficult to identify a common historical thread in such materials. The documents and mementoes in the collections provide interesting evidence of historic local, national and in some cases European events from the time of Napoleon’s first Italian campaign in 1796 to the end of the Second World War and the fight for liberation (1945). This one and a half century period transformed the political, social, economic and moral nature of Italy and Europe several times.