Villa Mirabello has housed the Civic Archaeological Museum of Varese since 1949; it was born in 1871 from the initiative of local scholars and enthusiasts, with the aim of gathering historical and archaeological evidence of the Varese area.
What to see
The museum was considerably enlarged in 1924 by the donation of the collection of the marquis Andrea Ponti, funder and promoter of archaeological research at the Isolino Virginia, a prehistoric pile-dwelling site now protected by UNESCO, on a small island in Lake Varese which he owned. The material comes from systematic excavations, such as the Isolino Virginia and Bodio Lomnago, from chance finds, such as the Second Warrior's Tomb brought to light near Sesto Calende during building work, and from private donations, and covers a very wide time span: Prehistory, with the Mesolithic and Neolithic especially well represented, Protohistory, with the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Roman period, with material mostly from necropolises and burials, and the early medieval Lombard era.
Among the oldest finds are small flint tools, Mesolithic microliths found near lakes Ganna and Torba, and a portion of a human skull discovered in a cave in the Valganna. From the Neolithic can be seen pottery of the so-called Isolino Group and square-mouthed vessels, among them a large bowl with «repair holes» for fixing plant cords with which Neolithic man had tried to mend a precious object; from the Isolino Virginia also come fire-strikers, the «prehistoric lighters» made of a flint set with mastic in a horn handle, one of them exceptionally intact. From the Bronze Age there are the glass «pile-dwelling beads», often associated with amber, and the Biandronno sword, found on the north shore of the lake between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and perhaps left as a votive offering; from the Iron Age a slab with carved footprints and cup marks, which covered a Golasecca tomb discovered in the 1930s, and the Second Warrior's Tomb of Sesto Calende, a funerary set of the sixth century BC of the Golasecca Culture.
Visiting
The museum is at Villa Mirabello, in Varese. The sources consulted give no opening hours or tickets: these should be checked with the Civic Museums of Varese.
Our editors' tip
Look for the funerary set of Mercallo dei Sassi, found in 1959: it belonged to a girl of about ten or twelve, buried in the mid-first century AD with jewels and toys, among them a little amber bowl, two small amphorae, a little cup and a small mirror in silver, a rock-crystal phial and a small distaff with two spindles.
