Altare Glass Art Museum
It was Christmas Eve in 1856. The company was mainly producing everyday glass items, or objects used in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry, and finally items made by the masters outside their normal production.
A room inside the glass factory was adapted as a glass museum, where the most precious pieces, created for national and international exhibitions, could be admired. In 1978, when the company went bankrupt, all the items preserved in the museum were purchased by the Municipality of Altare and assorted in the present collection.
If, on one hand the story about this collection is old, on the other, the story about glass art in Altare is centuries-old: the first kilns for glass-making date back to the 11th century.
A long-standing oral tradition tells that glass making was introduced into these lands by a community of Benedectine monks, coming from Northern France. However, there is no documentary evidence of this. Nowadays, visitors can admire artefacts conveying both the history of glass and that of its making: the museum rooms display handmade items, from the 18th century onwards, as well as the constantly evolving tools with which they were made, using the most varied techniques.
Not only is the content valuable, but also the container in which it is preserved: Villa Rosa is a splendid example of Art Nouveau building in the area.
It was built by Monsignor Giuseppe Bertolotti in the early 1900s and designed by Mr Nicolò Campora, an engineer who studied in Turin and was a great international expert in technical and stylistic architectural innovations. In 1906, it became the summer residence of the Saroldi family. These latter owners over the years would spend less and less time in this summer house. It was bought in 1992 by the Ministry for Cultural and Environment Heritage, which financed its renovation works and the following reopening to public, in 2004. It is now home to the Glass Art Museum and a venue for various events.
Demonstration kilns have been installed in its garden, where glass masters demonstrate their glass making techniques.
