Museo archeologico nazionale di Adria

The National Archaeological Museum of Adria gathers exhibits from Adria and Basso Polesine, the area that in the ancient times used to be the centre of contacts between the Mediterranean world, Northern Italy and the Central European Culture. The heart of the exhibition has to be the Bocchi collection, founded between the 18th and the 19th century. Among the most outstanding exhibits there are some bronze valuables, a vast collection of Attica’s ceramics with black and red figures, works of most famous painters and an extraordinary collection of glass from the Roman Age.The core of the exhibition is the ‘Bocchi collection’, founded between the 1800s and the 1900s thanks to extensive work of a noble Adria family. In particular it was Francesco Antonio Bocchi that organised the excavation works, collected, filed and studied the material hence protecting it from being scattered around. To ensure an adequate presentation of both that collection and other findings gathered during the excavation works in the 20th century, the Museum of Adria was constructed. The museum was designed by an Adria architect and engineer Giovanni Battista Scarpari and architect Ferdinando Forlati, currently Supervisor of the Veneto Monuments. The Museum was opened in September 1961 as a Civic Museum and then passed onto the State in 1972, gaining national recognition. Between 2000 and 2009 due to growing number of exhibits that needed adequate preservation and presentation and because of the introduction of new safety and accessibility regulations the Museum was expanded and completely refurbished.