The new museum of witchcraft, pride of the Argentina Valley

Opened in December 2016, it is already one of the favourite touristic destinations in Argentina Valley. We are talking about the new Museum of Witchcraft of Triora, hosted by the restored and suggestive Palazzo Stella, in the heart of the village.

This first outfitting offers four halls, which aim to narrate the knowledge, from witches to Befana. With the first hall you immediately enter in the coordinates and operational instruments of the “magical thought”, with the prestigious esoteric collection “Pio Breddo”. In the second hall, in artistic forms, the images of “Goddesses, spirits and feminine creatures” present in the archetypal pantheon of the accused women materialize. In the third hall herbal fragrances guide the visitors to explore the phytotherapeutic skills of the “dominae herbarum”, while a passage panel introduces to the “gray” of the fourth hall, with the invention of the diabolic witch and the Triora Trial.

Here, ancient texts of expert demonologists confirm an evident premeditation in striking the “deviants”, while the voice of Franchetta Borelli, aka Laura Sicignano of the Cargo Theater of Genoa, directly engages in the tortures to extort confessions. Already in this first phase of outfitting there is a special attention to children, who are welcomed at the entrance from the video of the Primary School of Triora and in the halls there are downards reproductions of exclusive watercolors of Libreso Guglielmi and illustrations of Diana Fontana of the small book “Le streghe assured” (“The absurd witches”).

It’s the beginning of a journey destined to continue in other halls of Palazzo Stella, which will host a very rich Library and a Documentation Center on the witchcraft and witch hunting.

In this first phase, the City of Triora has launched a unique ticket that allows to visit the new Museum of Witchcraft and the old Ethnographic Museum.

For information, please visit: http://www.museotriora.it

[Marco Scolesi]