Descrizione
Il Museo Etnografico Dolomiti ha sede nell’ottocentesca villa di campagna appartenuta ai conti Avogadro degli Azzoni, composta dall’edificio padronale e dagli annessi rustici, ed è organizzato in spazi funzionali:
- l’edificio padronale ospita le esposizioni permanenti, strutturate su tre piani e il laboratorio didattico;
- negli annessi rustici si trovano lo spazio per esposizioni temporanee, la biblioteca specializzata, l’archivio sonoro e fotografico, la sala conferenze e un piccolo laboratorio per la pulizia degli oggetti.
Intorno al Museo Etnografico Dolomiti si estende un terreno di oltre 4 ha a prato, bosco e campi, che fino al secolo XVIII era coltivato a roveri e tutelato dalla Repubblica di Venezia per le esigenze dell’Arsenale.
Nelle immediate adiacenze è stato ricavato un giardino di rose antiche, un piccolo campo didattico e un apiario scuola.
The Dolomiti Ethnographic Museum is housed in a 19th-century country villa formerly owned by the Counts Avogadro degli Azzoni. It includes the main building and attached rural structures, organised into functional spaces:
- The main building hosts the permanent exhibitions, spread across three floors, as well as the didactic workshop.
- In the outbuildings there are temporary exhibitions, a specialised library, a sound and photographic archive, a conference room, and a small workshop for cleaning objects.
Surrounding the Museum are over 4 hectares of meadows, woods, and fields, which, until the 18th century, were planted with oaks and protected by the Republic of Venice to meet the needs of the Arsenal. Nearby, visitors will also find a garden of ancient roses, a small educational field, and a teaching apiary.
The collections of the Dolomiti Ethnographic Museum include both tangible and intangible heritage.
The tangible heritage comprises an extensive array of objects from the province of Belluno, representing various aspects of local traditional culture: handicrafts, domestic tasks, religious practices, clothing, migration, and primary activities. They date from the 18th to the 21st centuries. Most of the artifacts have been donated, with particularly significant contributions from Giuseppe Mazzotti and Carlo Chissalè, along with a donation from the Folk Group of Cesiomaggiore.
The intangible heritage includes several thousand sound recordings, such as fairy tales, riddles, proverbs, songs, testimonies, autobiographies, and prayers, collected both in the Belluno area and among Italian-Venetian communities in southern Brazil during field research.
The Museum also houses a rich photographic and film archive, featuring historical photographs (both originals and reproductions), contemporary images of anthropological interest (most of which are from the visual anthropologist Francesco De Melis) and films produced during the Museum's research campaigns.
The Dolomiti Ethnographic Museum’s library also hosts a local book collection that once belonged to geographer Elio Migliorini, originating from his home in Arson (in the municipality of Feltre). It also includes anthropology volumes, printed documents, and small family archives.
(Traduzione a cura di Elena Sofia Mares)