Ideated and designed already at the end of the 1950s, at the initiative of the Municipality of Cesena, the museum was inaugurated in 1969 (under the name of Museo Storico dell’Antichità) inside the large and monumental environment beneath the famous library built between 1447 and 1452 by Matteo Nuti at the behest of Malatesta Novello. The arrangement of the museum, noted from the beginning for the strictly educational criterion in the ordering of the various collections accumulated since the early nineteenth century in the premises annexed to the same library, has been updated several times according to more modern exhibition and museographic criteria. It gathers important testimonies illustrating the history of Cesena and the surrounding territory from the first prehistoric settlements up to the Malatesta age. The path opens with the geological and prehistoric collections, so as to recompose the mosaic of environmental contexts and cultural events that shaped the physiognomy of the territory around Cesena before the entry of the Romagna center into the orbit of Rome. Varied and composite, the panorama of the archaeological remains of the pre-Roman age includes – to cite the most significant examples – the late Neolithic village of Provezza, the artifacts of the Diana culture (Late Neolithic) from the Marzocchi Furnace of S. Egidio, the ceramics linked to the water cult of the Panighina spring of Bertinoro, the materials from the stations of Diegaro, Valle Felici of Cervia, Capocolle of Bertinoro, Guado della Fornasaccia, Mensa Matelica of Ravenna. The Umbrian ‘facies’ that characterizes the second Iron Age in Romagna has instead two important cornerstones in the settlements of Casa del Diavolo and of S. Egidio. The rich historical documentation referring to the Roman period, whose beginnings date back to the middle of the 3rd century BC, with the arrival of the first colonists, develops starting from the testimonies of the urban area and then moving to those of the surrounding territory and the centuriated area, shedding light progressively on rural and domestic life, elements of armor and military clothing, artistic craftsmanship, productive activities and commerce, building techniques. Also noteworthy are the fragments of floor mosaics from the little town via Tiberti kept in the museum atrium, the interesting numismatic collection and a substantial core of inscriptions mostly funerary in destination, while some stone monuments perpetuate in their epigraphs the memory of various moments of city life. Attention deserves, as an exemplary document, and at the same time curious, of humanistic erudition and the tradition of local studies, the false inscription drafted in the sixteenth century with the aim of assuring historical truth to the prohibition to cross the Rubicon River, transgressed by Caesar according to the narration of literary sources. A special mention must then be reserved for the famous pair of large gilded silver dining plates with figured scenes, undoubtedly one of the main discoveries of regional archaeology. Exquisite and prestigious objects (over six kilograms of metal each) and therefore ‘treasured’ with an intentional concealment, they seem to have belonged to one of the aristocratic families of late Roman Ravenna. The itinerary concludes with an interesting exhibition of ceramics from the medieval period and the Malatesta age, some of which were found during earthworks beneath the flooring of the Library.
Information about Museo archeologico di Cesena
Via Montalti, 6,
47521 Cesena (Forlì-Cesena)
0547355727
franciosi_a@comune.cesena.fc.it
https://www.cesenacultura.it
Source: MIBACT
