Il Museo del Sigillo was opened to the public in 2000 on the first floor of the Palazzina delle Arti, a neo-medieval building from the 1920s designed by Franco Oliva in the city center. The exhibited collection consists of the private seal collection of the couple Lilian and Euro Capellini, donated a few years ago to the Municipality of La Spezia. The Museum offers visitors the most complete sphragistic collection that has ever been gathered. It is made up of about fifteen hundred seal matrices and impressions, dating from the 4th millennium BC to the present day.
The seals come from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Pre-Columbian America, China, Japan, and areas of Islamic influence. The most representative section of the Museum consists of European and North American material. The path follows a chronological and geographical order starting from the specimens of the 4th millennium BC, from Egypt, and then from the Roman imperial era. The period between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the most important for seal production. Many were created by French masters, including the Art Nouveau crystal and glass ones made by René Lalique. There is no shortage of ecclesiastical seals from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In the second room, gold seals are exhibited, including creations by the jeweler of the tsars, Fabergé. Finally, in the third room are seals produced in the East during a period that goes from the 4th century BC to modern times.
Information on the Seal Museum
Via del Prione, 236
19100 La Spezia (La Spezia)
0187/778544
museodelsigillo@laspeziacultura.it
https://www.laspeziacultura.it
Source: MIBACT
