Monterivoso's ethnografic museum of rural life

Going to villages in the Valnerina Ternana can become an opportunity to discover the traditions linked to the past peasant civilization of this area,kept alive over time. The Ethnographic Museum of Rural Life is dedicated to the daily life and work of that society. It is located just outside the village of Monterivoso, a small hamlet, close to Ferentillo. In addition to the exhibits on display,the museum is particularly interesting because it was set up inside a seventeenth-century water mill, whose hydraulic system is still functioning and therefore in itself of great historical and archaeological value. In the Monterivoso area, along the Nera river and its tributaries, there are other mills,which were used until a few decades ago. The exhibits on display, recovered and arranged with extreme care by Silvano Silvani,are precious evidence of an important piece of the social history and popular culture of the Valnerina. Particularly rich is the part of the exhibition relating to agricultural work as well as the reconstruction of the interior of a peasant house,of which you can see many objects that evoke everyday life. A cellar has also been recreated where tools and machinery for the production of wine are placed,including a 19th-century press.

With a few steps you reach the interior of the village dating back to the thirteenth century and on which stands the high watchtower of what was once the fortress of this place. The town stands on the southern slope of Monte Sant’Angelo, in a geographical position that in the past was a transit point for the Customs of the Salto del Cieco - border between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples. Following the road that winds through the village,where at its entrance stands a beautiful seventeenth-century building, you arrive at the parish church of Sant’Antonio Abate,originally from the fourteenth century, transformed in the sixteenth century and recently restored. It houses the painting "The Oration in the Getzemane Garden" by Francesco Nardini from the sixteenth century and also a valuable organ.

 

Revised Google translation