Ideated and designed already at the end of the 1950s, on the initiative of the Municipality of Cesena, the museum was inaugurated in 1969 (under the name of Historical Museum of Antiquity) within the large and monumental environment beneath the famous library built between 1447 and 1452 by Matteo Nuti by the will of Malatesta Novello. The museum’s setup, noted from the beginning for the strictly educational criterion in the arrangement of the various collections accumulated since the early nineteenth century in the rooms annexed to the same library, has been updated several times according to more modern exhibition and museographic criteria. It collects important testimonies that illustrate the history of Cesena and the surrounding territory starting from the first prehistoric settlements up to the Malatesta age.
The route opens with geological and prehistoric collections, in order to reconstruct the mosaic of environmental contexts and cultural events that shaped the physiognomy of the territory around Cesena before the Romagna center entered the orbit of Rome. Varied and composite, the panorama of prehistoric archaeological findings includes – to mention 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, ceramics linked to the water cult of the Panighina spring of Bertinoro, 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 two important strongholds in the settlements of Casa del Diavolo and S. Egidio. The rich historical documentation referring to the Roman period, whose beginnings date back to the mid-3rd century BC, with the arrival of the first settlers, develops starting from the urban area testimonies and then moves on to those of the surrounding territory and the centuriated area, gradually shedding light on rural and domestic life, elements of armor and military dress, artistic craftsmanship, productive activities and trade, and building techniques.
Also noteworthy are fragments of floor mosaics from the small town near Tiberti street preserved in the museum’s atrium, the interesting numismatic collection, and a substantial nucleus of inscriptions mostly funerary in nature, while some stone monuments perpetuate through their epigraphs the memory of various moments of city life. Attention deserves, as an exemplary and at the same time curious document, of humanistic erudition and the tradition of local studies, the false inscription written in the 16th century with the purpose of ensuring historical authenticity to the ban on crossing the Rubicon river, violated by Caesar according to the narrative of literary sources.
A special mention must then be reserved for the famous pair of large gilded silver dining plates with figurative scenes, undoubtedly one of the main discoveries of regional archaeology. Extremely refined and prestigious objects (over six kilograms of metal each) and therefore ‘treasured’ with intentional hiding, they seem to have belonged to one of the aristocratic families of Ravenna in late Roman times.
The itinerary ends with an interesting exhibition of ceramics from the medieval period and the Malatesta age, some of which were found during excavation works beneath the pavement of the Library.
Information about the Archaeological Museum of Cesena
Via Montalti, 6,
47521 Cesena (Forlì-Cesena)
0547355727
franciosi_a@comune.cesena.fc.it
https://www.cesenacultura.it
Source: MIBACT
