The result of long historiographical and design work, this new exhibition recounts the Risorgimento as a phenomenon of European relevance and of pressing topicality. Paintings, sculptures, heirlooms and “relics”, having undergone careful restorations, are showcased as material manifestations of a long and complex history that culminated in Italian Unification. A rich digital collection accompanies and integrates a storytelling that reaches up to the present day, involving the visitor in the events that saw Brescia at the centre of the long Risorgimento, making it famous throughout the world as the Lioness of Italy.

The Museum

The route embodies a new concept of historical museums, in which storytelling plays a leading role and takes the audience on a journey from the Risorgimento to current events. The museum alternates local and European scale, narrative and analysis, objects and digital collections, with the aim of illustrating events, places, and protagonists of the Italian Risorgimento in an innovative and participatory way. The exhibition consists of eight sections and is entirely narrated in both Italian and English.

History

The Brescia Museum of the Risorgimento was among the first to be set up in Italy. Created by public proclamation in 1887, it opened its doors in 1893 in Palazzo Martinengo da Barco, now housing the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo. After finding a home alternatively in Palazzo Tosio and in the Castle, it was reopened in 1959 in the Grande Miglio of the Castle, an early modern granary. After closing in 2015 due to structural problems, extensive restorations and fitting-out works once again allow the Grande Miglio to house the collections. The Museum also occupies the spaces of the Piccolo Miglio, an additional former storage room, where the Museum reception, ticket office and bookshop are located.

Collections

The Museum Lioness of Italy preserves and enhances a substantial part of its heritage dedicated to Brescia’s Risorgimento history, which is mainly the result of donations by the townspeople to the Civici Musei since the end of the nineteenth century. Relics, objects, paintings, flags, memorials, and sculptures have thus accumulated over the course of more than a century, characterising the Museum’s collecting history in a peculiar way. Compared to previous arrangements, the new layout includes a selection of the most significant pieces, including recent acquisitions by Fondazione Brescia Musei, such as the large painting by Jean Adolphe Beaucé, General Niel on the Medole field (1861). Other important objects in the exhibition are on long term loan by private individuals or institutions that have generously made them available to strengthen the museum’s narrative.

The digital collection

The Museum’s multimedia apparatuses were created as interactive tools for both narrative and educational purposes. The digital component is part of the itinerary: a true collection, possessing the same aesthetic, scientific, and narrative meaning as the physical objects