Museo Nazionale Atestino, History museum in Este, Italy
The Museo Nazionale Atestino is an archaeological museum in Este that presents findings from prehistoric times through the Roman period. The collections show objects discovered during excavations in the region and document how local cultures developed over centuries.
The institution began in 1834 as a small collection of stone inscriptions and grew larger over time. In the early 1900s it moved to a palazzo whose walls incorporated medieval fortifications from an earlier era.
The displays show everyday objects from ancient settlements in the region, including jewelry, pottery, and tools that reveal local crafts and daily routines. These finds offer a direct window into how people lived and worked here in earlier times.
The museum occupies Villa Mocenigo, near Este's 14th-century town walls. Its eleven rooms are arranged over a ground floor and a first floor, with further statues and coats of arms on the upper terrace. The building also holds a specialist library, a restoration laboratory and a conference room.
Three rooms of the piano nobile keep 17th-century frescoes by Giulio Carpioni, surviving the 1785 fire that largely destroyed the palace. The museum also holds the gold medallion of Augustus, struck in 2 BC, acquired in the Fascist era.
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