Military Historical Relics Museum, Chiaramonte Gulfi

The collection of Emanuele Gulino, a nationally renowned collector, exceeds a thousand artifacts, covering events that have affected Italian military history over the last two centuries.

The preserved memorabilia spans tragic and heroic moments of our soldiers, in the trenches of the Carso or on the battlefields of Africa, Greece, and Russia. The richest periods in artifacts remain the First World War, the Fascist era, and the Second World War.

The exhibition series of the collection is dominated by military headgear, from all branches. Then helmets (some with entry and exit holes, others with radio headsets) from various generations and states.

Weapons are abundantly represented. Already at the entrance of the museum stands a Breda 76/40 cannon, emblematic of traditional warfare. Then gas masks, sabers, mines, hand grenades, the skeleton of a machine gun, a 1908 shell, a machine gun cartridge belt, a torpedo-like bomb, large cannon shells, a triple tear gas stick, and then various parts of airplane bodies, a ’43 fuel tank for the flight autonomy of the plane.

A vast collection of military uniforms with every type of badge and insignia is proudly displayed.

Some lighters on display, sent by soldiers to their families, bear eloquent dedications: “Please do not try to talk to me about Vietnam: I have already been there.”