It was established by the Municipality of San Paolo and collects testimonies of the Arbereshe culture, belonging to the Albanian ethnic group, settled locally after the Turkish invasion of their homeland, which took place between 1526 and 1534. The Arbereshe settled in Southern Italy between the 15th and 18th centuries, following the death of the Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastriot Skanderbeg. This ethnic group has remained strongly cohesive over the centuries and has not merged with the local population, to the extent that it is still recognized as Albanian. They speak a dialect mixing Italian and Albanian and follow the Byzantine Catholic rite.
The Museum combines several realities: it is a place of traditional values and a picture of past life, kept intact amidst new technologies and globalized mass communications; it is the territory and its rural landscape; it is the inhabited village and its building and urban fabric; it is the community and its culture; it is the container of memories and the laboratory of the future.
The Museum represents a place and a way to preserve, protect, enhance, and promote the cultural, territorial, social, and economic identity of the local Arbereshe community of San Paolo Albanese; it is the tool through which to produce new culture.
Born as an agro-pastoral exhibition in 1975, and experienced in the following years as the recovery and enhancement of material culture objects left in their original contexts in the peasant houses of the historic center, the Museum has become a recognized cultural institution both formally through founding administrative acts in 1984 and through its activities and events it promoted or participated in during the ’80s, ’90s, and recently.
It has a structure, inaugurated in 1993, created by reusing old abandoned buildings in the historic center, where material culture objects are exhibited; oral, popular, and agro-pastoral culture is documented; the roots and identity of the Arbereshe ethno-linguistic minority are testified.
The functions of the exhibition structure are completed by the specialist library for Albanian speakers, created in 1979, the “Objects from Memory” exhibit set up in 1987, and the craft workshop completed in 2000.
The Museum contains everyday use objects, traditional costumes, products and tools of domestic and working life, and illustrates the processing stages of broom plant, from harvesting, to transformation, to textile production, both through photographic documentation and the display of work tools.
Information about the Arbereshe Culture Museum
Via Regina Margherita, 10
85030 San Paolo Albanese (Potenza)
097394469
mcarbereshe@hotmail.it
https://www.comune.sanpaoloalbanese.pz.it
Source: MIBACT
