The Museo dell'olivo e dell'olio (Olive and oil Museum) is a private museum located in
Torgiano
Torgiano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Perugia in the Italy, Italian region Umbria, located about 10 km southeast of Perugia.
Torgiano borders the following municipalities: Bastia Umbra, Bettona, Deruta, Perugia. It is on ...
(
Umbria
Umbria ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Cascata delle Marmore, Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the Tiber. It is the only landlocked region on the Italian Peninsula, Apennine Peninsula. The re ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
) specialized in
olive oil
Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil.
It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a cond ...
and
olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
culture and knowledge. Its premises are in an ancient
oil mill, which worked till the 1960s.
Its rich collections of
fine arts
In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...
and material culture provides well-documented information on oil production and olive-growing, traditional uses and symbolism on oil and olives.
History
The museum is owned by
Cantine Lungarotti Winery
The Lungarotti Winery arl is an Italian wine company located in the region of Umbria, Italy. The property is divided between several locations, with the largest in the towns of Torgiano and Montefalco. Founded in the late 1950s by Giorgio Lungaro ...
and run by the Lungarotti Foundation, which opened it in 2000 and is part, together with the
Torgiano Wine Museum, of the official network of museums in Umbria.
The Museum
The itinerary is made up of 11 rooms, dealing with different aspects of oil and olive trees. It begins with scientific information on olive trees: its botanic features and traditional and innovative systems of olive-growing. A millstone with animal traction and a huge millstone with hydraulic traction show, together with pictures and didactic panels, the long evolution in oil extraction techniques.
Mythology related to olive oil is then dealt with. Great attention is paid to the goddess
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...
who, according to Greek mythology, offered mankind the first domesticated olive tree. Masterpiece of this section is a red-decorated Attica alabastron (a type of pottery for holding oil) portraying the goddess Athena, ascribable to
Foundry Painter (5th century B.C.).
[Concetta Masseria, ''L'aristeia del Banausos: l'athlon di uno scudo per Atena'', Loffredo Editore, Naples, 2001] Other pieces of the collection are a tribute to Athena's civilizing action (as holder of technological knowledge) as to war, vessels, agriculture and housekeeping.
The third section concerns landscape. Most of Umbria is cultivated with olive trees. Such feature has always impressed travelers and visitors who, during their so-called
Grand Tour, would record their emotions and interest in the landscape in their note-books, in sketches or descriptions. This section contains cadastres, maps and other objects recalling such Grand Tour.
The following rooms tell the traditional uses of olive oil: the most ancient (oil as a source of light) is documented through a number of
oil lamp
An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. The ...
s from the pre-Classical era to Neoclassicism. The remaining rooms describe how oil has been used in a wide range of sectors: ritual usage in Christianity, Islam and Judaism; usage in sport, food, scents and ointment preparation; sphragistics, weaving and wood-processing.
The last room of the museum gathers a variety of symbolic elements which, over the centuries, have contributed to consider olive oil and olive trees as sacred and gifted of magic and curative power.
References
Bibliography
* Gian Luigi Bravo, ''Italiani: il racconto etnografico'', Meltemi, Roma, 2001
* Maria Grazia Marchetti Lungarotti, ''Olive and Oil Museum. Itinerary'', Fondazione Lungarotti, Perugia, 2002
* John Train, '' The Olive. Tree of civilization'', Scala Books in associations with Antique Collectors' Club, 2004
External links
Official website{{Authority control
Museums in Umbria
Food museums in Italy