Exhibition

The exhibition is on the first floor of Piazza Cittadella and in the wide entrance history and objectives of this centenary cultural institutions are summarized. The entrance is through a wide stairway at the end of which your attention is immediately attracted by a massive wooly mammoth reconstruction. This choice is motivated by the fact that during the first years of the 1900’s, in the plain of Petosino, in Bergamo, bone finds of these huge mammals, who lived in our territory more or less 200.000 years ago, were discovered.
After studies and appropriate preparation they were preserved in the Museum with many other naturalistic exhibits, thanks to research and donations both recent and of the past, which are at the base for knowing and educating on preserving our territory. Reconstruction is an emblem of the role played today by the museum, which is studying the territory, organizing ad promoting research, preparing and preserving findings and divulgating this enormous cultural heritage through specialized publications and in the exhibition halls. A 3D map gives you the chance to get to know the layout of the exposition path that incorporates zoological spaces, spaces dedicated to natural sciences and to Ethnography.

The QR codes in the halls give you the chance to listen to the audio guides relative to the exposition directly from your Smartphone.

Earth Science

The territory’s geology gives the chance to study and sample specimens of great interest that are exhibited in the hall dedicated to the geology of Bergamo. Other expositive spaces are dedicated to karst phenomena, mineralogy and petrography.
There are different exhibition halls dedicated to the world of fossils. The theme is not only treated in a general way, there also are big spaces dedicated to the paleontological heritage of Bergamo, that describe well the complex geological history of our territory.

Zoology

Zoology is the branch of science that studies the life of the animal world in all its forms. The evolutionary process has generated, and continues to generate, an incredible variety of animal life forms, expression of biodiversity. At the same time a lot of species are endangered and sometimes even become extinct due to the actions of humans, through the destruction of habitats or through direct actions. Animals are a constant presence in the life of humans and the museum dedicates a big space to them, inside which it’s possible, through an engaging path, to go in depth about the problems that have to do with them. It’s fundamentally important to precise that, in the respect of the laws and especially because of the ethics of this moment in time, none of the specimens exhibited of vertebrates has been killed for this reason. These are either historical preparations or, if they are more recent, they arrived in the museum after accidental episodes or after judiciary seizures. In the first windows dedicated to vertebrates the characteristics of this animal group are illustrated; even though this group certainly isn’t the most numerous out of the animal groups, it’s certainly the best known. A tactile space dedicated to the differences in the structure between the five classes of vertebrates shows the expositive methods of the museum that, in the last few years, has introduced sensorial spaces able to give visitors the chance to “Touch with their own hands” what is shown to give a deeper and more interactive learning. The expositive path unravels following a systematic criteria that, in evolutionary succession, starts with fishes and species that adapted to aquatic spaces, then amphibians, animals whose evolution is characterized by aquatic life and phases of terrestrial life, reptiles, first real conquerors of land, birds, where you can see some of the biggest and most powerful flying animals, and then mammals, while the next expositive space is dedicated to invertebrates.
The didactic part and the interactive supports along the path actively engage and intrigue a heterogeneous public.

Ethnography

The exhibition of the south side of Cittadella Place is dedicated to extra-European cultures. The ethnography hall of the museum contain items donated by the Civic Administration starting in 1855. Today the collection is made up of over 1.200 items that come primarily from Africa and the Americas. The ethnographic section gives the public the chance to admire important collections, thanks to donations made to the museum and preserved for a long time in its study collections. Artifacts and Objects attributable to the traditional cultures of the American and African continents, with great artistic and ritualistic value are exposed, which give the visitors the chance to come out of their own borders and take virtual journeys in far-away lands both in time and space. This hall is dedicated to Comm. Aldo Perolari that, in 1989, donated to the city of Bergamo an important 413 item collection that contains objects from 86 sub-Saharan African cultures. The objects that belonged to Giacomo Constatino Beltrami, explorer from Bergamo, are of particular interest, to him goes the merit of collecting important ritualistic material of the Amerindian populations.

The physics instrument

The physics instruments kept in Bergamo’s Museo Enrico Caffi come from the Physics Cabinet of the Liceo Paolo Sarpi. This school originated from the old Collegio Mariano, a prestigious scholastic institution that over the course of Bergamo’s history has had various different names; during French rule it was the Liceo Dipartimentale, becoming the Liceo Paolo Sarpi in 1869, when Bergamo came under the dominion of the House of Savoy.

The Museo Enrico Caffi’s project to valorize historical scientific instruments began in 1998, when the first inventory of the material kept in the museum was prepared by Laura Serra, author of the Catalogue of the Instruments in the Physics Cabinet of the Liceo Sarpi, Bergamo.
The study and cataloging of these instruments has increased public awareness of the entire collection of the Physics Cabinets of the Collegio Mariano and the Liceo Sarpi, highlighting their abundance.
The presence in Bergamo since the 18th century of schools equipped with teaching laboratories, which acquired new instruments in the following centuries, is a clear indication of the importance in Bergamo’s scientific cultural development of teaching the experimental sciences.
The Enrico Caffi Museum, a scientific institution involved in the dissemination and teaching of science, began in 2014 to develop its collection so as to bring to light this important evidence regarding the history of scientific culture – and science teaching in particular. The project brought the recording of the instruments, along their cleaning and small repairs, and today most of these instruments seem to be in a good state of conservation; the photographic documentation of the objects, the realization of the “Stupire, Incuriosire, Spiegare” exhibit, the realization of the website www.fisicaalmuseo.it .

Implementation of the project has been funded by Lovato Electric SpA, a company that has been designing and manufacturing electrical devices since 1922 and is keenly aware of the importance of the instruments in the collection, which are fundamental for understanding the development of civil and industrial electrical devices.

Piazza Cittadella, 10 – 24129 Bergamo tel:+39035286011 infomuseoscienze@comune.bergamo.it

tel. +39 035 286011
infomuseoscienze@comune.bergamo.it