The Museum was set up in spacious and completely renovated premises, with an exhibition that aims to keep alive the local historical memory of the period of the Second World War.
CONTACTS
ADDRESS: San Giusti di Brancoli
TEL: 339 8854979 - 338 1400559
E-MAIL: lineagoticabrancoli@gmail.com
WEB: facebook.com/lineagoticabrancoli/
The Museum is divided into thematic areas with a large conference room and an important historical documentary and photographic archive.
Visitors are provided with details of material, uniforms and other exhibits.
It is also possible to take guided tours, upon reservation, to the Gothic Line fortifications on Monte Pittone along a route of high historical and scenic value.
The Brancoli Memory Museum has been organized into themed areas.
La sala dai Campi di Battaglia (The room from the Battlefields)
contains excavation material that was found in the areas of Brancoli, but also in the province of Lucca and surrounding areas in general.
There is also other material used in the battlefields: various types of mines, from anti-personnel to anti-tank mines and other types of armaments and munitions used by the various units present in our areas. A sort of “small minefield” was reproduced here to make people aware and understand the danger of all these devices.
The Conference Hall & Historical Archive
is named after Piergiorgio Romboli, a well-known historian of the area. In this room there is a large photographic exhibition divided by themes concerning our area and therefore valuable evidence of past history and a historical archive with many books on the subject.
La sala dell'esercito tedesco e Italiano - del Regio Esercito (The German and Italian army room - of Royal Forces)
This is a room particularly rich in material, with a variety of uniforms and helmets. There is also a large amount of material used by soldiers and equipment in general. It is here that we have painstakingly reproduced a reproduction of a bunker, such as they can be found in the nearby Gothic Line. In the reproduction of this cross-section of a bunker, we were in fact inspired by the stones used on the nearby Monte Pittone. Inside this cross-section of a bunker, various materials that might have been present were inserted, thus reproducing a scene of life at that time.
La sala delle forze alleate Ivan J. Houston (The Allied Forces Hall Ivan J. Houston)
named after the sergeant of the 92nd Buffalo Division who, as a young man, freed the Serchio Valley with the other African-American soldiers of the Buffalo Division. Ivan J. Houston returned to these areas after 70 years and discovered how much he was still loved.
The room contains various types of material that belonged to the allied armies, particularly the Americans, but also the British and the Brasilians, remembering the soldiers of the FEB. Much of the material displayed in the room was donated by Houston's own son.
There is also a re-enactment angle here, the encounter between a civilian and an American soldier in a rural setting, a chicken coop. A “simple” scene, but full of meaning because that is what was happening at the time, with the locals offering something to the liberators who, in turn, offered other products, never seen before.
The room is also the occasion for an exhibition of rural culture material.