Agricultural Museum of the Mendrisiotto

THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED FOR RENOVATION UNTIL OCTOBER 2023

This museum, the one and only of its kind, was set up with the aim to preserve and emphasise the importance of the rural testimonies of the Mendrisiotto and Basso Ceresio.

The Museum in a nutshell - the exhibition spaces 
The Agricultural Museum of the Mendrisiotto is housed in the building (built in 1856) which until the 1970s was the seat of the municipal school. Among the inhabitants of Stabio there are many memories of the hours spent in the classrooms, today exhibition spaces that host thousands of children every year.

The 3-storey building overlooks Piazza Maggiore, in the heart of the historic centre of Stabio, and consists of 6 exhibition rooms.

2 of the exhibition halls are dedicated to the vast theme of peasant civilization, another 2 halls are dedicated to temporary exhibitions whose theme changes annually, 1 hall is dedicated to the "multipurpose hall" of the Stabio Culture Department and the remaining hall houses the workshop.

Please note: the Museum is not equipped with a lift and is therefore not accessible to visitors who have mobility difficulties. 

Permanent exhibition - Are farmers born or become farmers?

• 2 exhibition halls (PT and 1P)
• 864 objects on display
• 15 themes presented
• Duration of the visit: at least 1 hour

Guided tours for school groups and groups (booking required)

The layouts are characterized by an important presence of objects on the wall and by an exhibition path that was intended to be as "didactic" and clear as possible. 

You will arrive, for example, to the cart pulled by the ox, only after having observed the walls dedicated to the woodcutter, the carpenter, the cartwright, the blacksmith, the farrier and, finally, the saddler. 

The installation conceived in this way, created during the first 3 months of 2018, was intended to help the visitor to grasp the consequentiality and connections between the many themes presented, which try to tell the story of "peasant civilisation". 

In order to involve the visitor, whether a child or an adult, in this process of getting to know their roots, it was decided to put some of the objects on display back into operation to find gestures, times and ways that have almost disappeared and, perhaps, to question our present.