Italy

Museo del Castagno di Colognora (Chestnut Museum of Colognora)

Type of place/facility: Cultural Nature Tourism

Location: Colognora (Lucca, Italy)         

Year established: 1985                

Ownership: Ente Comitato Paesano di Colognora

Background
In Italy during the past centuries European Chestnut cultivation both for fruit and wood production had been so essential for poorest rural people living in high hills and mountains that this species was renamed “the bread tree”. It provided food for humans (nuts, flour and its products, honey, natural medicines) and for animals and wood to be used for buildings and for poles, fencings, stakes, vine supports, tools, furniture, charcoal, tannin. As a result this species, which wasn’t naturally so spread, covers currently more than 10% of Italian forest surface. After the Second World War, with its consequent social and economics changes, and because of serious phytopathological fungal diseases, Chestnut cultivation was progressively abandoned.
In order to mantain the cultural and social heritage connected with chestnut cultivation, ecomuseums about traditional cultural practices were born. The Chestnut Museum of Colognora was the first one and in Italy it’s the only one completely dedicated to chestnut cultivation.

Description

The museum is located in an ancient rural characteristic building with floor and walls made of local stone and of chestnut wood. Inside there is an important collection of objects and tools related to the history of the chestnut cultivation and traditions and of the activities linked to it. It contains only original tools.

The museum is composed of 5 thematic rooms:

• chestnut fruit cultivation, nuts collection, nuts drying, nuts peeling, flour production (by water mills).
• chestnut flour conservation, traditional way of freezing.
• chestnut wood uses, handicraft.
• harvesting tools, tools to carve wood, tannin extraction.
• chestnut charcoal production and uses.

Since 2001 the Museum works with the Institute for the Documentation on Chestnut Tree and for Forestry Research (IRF), a private association that collaborates with research institutes, universities and public institutions to recuperate and conserve tools, cultivation techniques and fruit chestnut cultivars (traditionally propagated by grafting).

In the Museum there’s a library that contains  more than 1000 of old and recent publications about chestnut collected by the IRF.

In the forests nearby Colognora, the Museum organized a thematic path about local forest trees, forestry activities and chestnut orchards cultivation (with a collection of local cultivars selected for flour production) with tourist and educational purposes.

Further contact:
MUSEO DEL CASTAGNO
Via A. Catalani  4 Colognora di Pescaglia  (Lucca) 
 Tel. +39 0583 358159
www.museodelcastagno.it
www.irflucca.it

To visit the library: by appointment +39 347 8471998

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