Museo del Territorio Biellese

The Museum of the Territory of Biella is the Museum of the City of Biella that collects testimonies of the entire territory from Viverone to the Old Lake, the Bessa Mount Rubello. The visit to the museum, located within the cloister leaning to the Basilica of San Sebastian, allows you to make a journey through time starting from prehistory up to the twentieth century. The building that houses the museum was built by Sebastiano Ferrero and so its history is intertwined with that of one of the major protagonists of the Renaissance at the court of Ludovico il Moro and in Biella wanted to build a wonderful example of inspired architecture Lombard with lines of great beauty and size. After the vision of the Biella area map that appears in the large entrance gallery of the museum, as if to wrap up in a big hug the visitor, the museum is on two intersecting paths: one dedicated to the archeology section (from palaeontology to the Middle Ages ), the other dedicated to the historical-artistic section (from the Renaissance to the twentieth century collectors). The Museum was inaugurated in December 2001 to collect and preserve the Biella heritage and has been enriched over the years with the construction of several sections: in May 2011 was inaugurated the archaeological section opens with marine fossils of Biella - when it was submerged by the sea - continues with the Bessa, the Roman necropolis of Cerrione and Biella Dolcinian until the Middle Ages. An exhibition of great impact, thanks to the media, creates suggestions, emotions and can be appreciated by those who want to recover a strong link with the area's identity, its history, culture and taste of an alpine area and the border . But there is also another soul of the museum, the one linked to local collectors with the collection of great masterpieces of the nineteenth and twentieth century: men and women who were the notables of Biella, but with great generosity have left at all the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the masterpieces, like the works of Longoni, Carra, Pelizza da Volpedo, Calderini, Delleani. A complete visit, no depth, requires at least an hour; if you have the opportunity to return, plan your time choosing in advance the areas that most interest you. Along the way you will find information on rooms and insights on the works and the different sections; at the ticket office you can rent audio guides, while in the bookshops are selling postcards and publications of the Museum. In the cafeteria you can enjoy a pleasant stop for cold drinks and hot food.