Museum of Maritime Civilization of Marche Region

Created with the financial support of the Marche Region and “CARISAP” foundation, the Regional Fishing and Seafaring Culture Museum has been progressively enriched with generous donations by private citizens. Their treasures include several kinds of tools and objects related to the multifaceted forms of life on the sea, most of which had been kept in their houses for decades.

The museum is divided into “narrative units”, designed on the base of a deep historical investigation which was carried out on several sources: archival material, newspaper articles, citations in literary texts, analysis of physical objects and the collection of priceless testimonies from “oral sources”, which made a substantial contribution in reconstructing the history and traditions of the town, and of the whole Marche region. Research has deeply shaped the museum’s structure: one of its most peculiar features, in fact, is the inclusion of a large amount of documentary evidence, presented to visitors through printed publication and multimedia installations.

At the entrance of the museum, a sound cone reproduces the sound of the sea in different weather conditions. Not far from there, at the beginning of a section named “Voyage”, visitors can hear the voice of a “parone” - a word used to indicate the owner of a peculiar kind of fishing boat. As visitors get nearer, they will notice a screen playing a video of the old man speaking, a precious testimony from the past, and a reproduction of his vessel, the traditional “paranza” boat, in a 1:10 scale model. Built by a Venetian shipwright, the “paranza” has become the symbol of the museum itself.

A room is specifically dedicated to the Adriatic sea, a communal space where Eurasian cultures have met and grown throughout the centuries. Here, large glass walls open onto a beautiful view of the sea. Another section takes advantage from the nearly perfect integration between the museum and the surrounding environment: a terrace overlooking the city harbour, where the functional organization of the port area is explained.

San Benedetto del Tronto was the first port in Italy to launch a motor fishing boat, in year 1912. Hence, a special section of the museum describes the evolution of fishing boats, from the first sailboats to the modern motor boats. A map of the main fishing routes followed by the local fishermen is also shown in this section.

Each narrative unit explores a peculiar aspect of life on the sea: the landing and the unloading of fish, the fish industry and marketing, shipwrecks and accidents related to other dramatic episodes, the literature of the sea. The Regional Fishing and Seafaring Culture Museum aims to provide a comprehensive socioeconomic cross-section of a waterfront city like San Benedetto, focusing on the role played by the sea in its development: in the past, San Benedetto del Tronto was the first fishing port in Italy, holding the primacy of the largest fishing fleet in the country.

The museum also collects tools and materials related to rope and fishnet production, activities which once were just as vital for the city of San Benedetto as the fishing business was: practised by skilled masters, the fascinating craft of weaving thin hemp fiber into strong ropes and then into fishing nets contributed significantly to the development of the city.