The National Museum of Abruzzo returns ‘home’ to the sixteenth-century Castle of L’Aquila

“The return of the National Museum of Abruzzo to the sixteenth-century Castle of L’Aquila – comments Osanna – represents a passage of great symbolic and cultural value: not only the return of a museum to its historical location, but the concrete sign of a reconstruction path that has placed heritage at the center as a public good, an instrument of knowledge and a factor of cohesion for the community. The new layout is the result of a long and detailed work, which has intertwined research, restoration and museographic design, restoring accessibility to collections whose relationship with the museum and the public had been profoundly affected by the tragic events of 2009. This extraordinary fortress – continues Massimo Osanna – today returns to being a lively, dynamic place of culture, capable of speaking to all audiences, becoming at the same time a symbol of rebirth and resilience for the entire community. The reopening of these spaces is part of a broader vision that the General Directorate of Museums is pursuing throughout the country: museums understood as active cultural centers, rooted in the territories, open to research, accessibility and participation. In this sense, the Munda represents a significant model, capable of holding together memory and future, local identity and national networks, within the national museum system. The Castle of L’Aquila thus returns to being not only a treasure chest of works, but a space for relationships and sharing, called to play a central role in the cultural life of the area”.

“Today we are not only inaugurating a new exhibition, but we are giving back to the city a place of collective memory and to the region a fundamental tool for understanding its heritage”, declared the director of Munda during the press conference. “The Castle returns to being a museum in step with the times, alive, open, in dialogue with the community and with international research“. “A compelling challenge that we wanted and for which we fought, which we completed with great effort but enormous satisfaction, convinced that the reconstruction, even the immaterial one, of our city is a key element of its rebirth”, commented Salvatore Provenzano.

The spaces on the ground floor and first floor of the south-eastern quarter of the Castle were handed over to the museum in June 2025 by the former Regional Secretariat for Abruzzo which oversaw the complex consolidation and restoration works starting from 2016. The delivery of this first excerpt allowed Munda to proceed with the museological project which involved this section with the new museographic display of 98 works. The Special Office for the Reconstruction of L’Aquila supported the museum in the approval phases of the executive project and in the management of the procedure for assigning the works, operating as a contracting authority and following the set-up works, to seal a fruitful collaboration with the Munda which testifies to the commitment of the various institutions and bodies in the area and which will have further developments in the future. In this regard, we highlight the contribution of the Cassa di Risparmio dell’Aquila Foundation which co-financed the screens for use on the imposing Touch Wall on the first floor, 3.5 meters long and 1.2 meters high.

Munda’s return to the L’Aquila Castle, where it had been hosted since its inauguration on 23 September 1951, is a return that has been awaited for sixteen years.. The 2009 earthquake caused serious damage to the Castle, with the collapse of the second floor – where the modern museum part was housed – and heavy damage to the upper levels, requiring the closure of the museum. Since 19 December 2015, in order not to interrupt the relationship with the city, the Munda has found a home in the spaces of the former slaughterhouse of Borgo Rivera, within the historic walls and next to the Fountain of the 99 Spouts.

“We wanted December 19, 2025 to mark exactly ten years since the reopening in the temporary headquarters in Borgo Rivera”, explained the Director. “It is a symbolic passage: from a place created so as not to interrupt the continuity of the museum, we return to the location which has preserved the artistic history of Abruzzo since its origins”.

What opens today is the first stage of an organic project that concerns the entire Castle. Precious was the collaboration with the Special Office for the Reconstruction of L’Aquila which formulated the tender notice and operated as a contracting authority, with a Sole Project Manager and a Works Director, for Lot 1 of the project called Musealisation, restoration and research laboratories, new warehouses, reception and valorisation spaces, accessibility works and overcoming physical and cognitive architectural barriers, financed with the Implementation of the interventions of the Complementary Plan to Pnnr in the territories affected by the 2009-2016 earthquake, order of the Extraordinary Commissioner for reconstruction n. 11 of 30 December 2021.

The museographic project was created by Studio Guicciardini & Magni while the museological project was curated by the Director Federica Zalabra. The Central Institute for the Restoration of the Mic intervened with professionalism and competence to provide indications for the creation of the anti-seismic and anti-vibration system which was developed into bases for the numerous wooden sculptures and panels on which the majority of the panel paintings were attached.

The portion of the spaces returned to the Munda now hosts an introductory itinerary dedicated to the history of the city of L’Aquila, the Castle and the museum, divided into three rooms, with immersive installations and a narrative through images from the sixteenth-century foundation of the Castle to the present day; environments with floors printed on glass that reproduce the historical plans of the city, to orient the visitor in the urban space and in the cultural landscape of Abruzzo; the new exhibition itinerary from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, the heart of the museum’s rich permanent collections. The rest of the collections – the archaeological section, the works from the seventeenth century to contemporary art – will be placed progressively, according to an already defined museum project which envisages, by the end of 2027, the delivery and installation of the second floor, returning the entire historical block to the museum.