This small-town museum, in a former convent in the Sicilian interior, became famous because almost all its best pieces came back from far away. They were dug up secretly at nearby Morgantina, sold abroad and bought by great American museums; then the Italian state claimed them and got them back, one after another.
What to see
The main piece is a large statue of a goddess in limestone and marble, over two metres tall, its drapery carved to look as if blown by the wind. It had been bought by a museum in California and in 2011, after a long dispute, it came back here, to the land it had been taken from. Beside it are two acrolithic heads of divinities, also returned from the United States.
Then there is the Hellenistic silver service, back from New York, and the material from the regular excavations at Morgantina: pottery, votive terracottas, coins and objects of daily use from the Greek city that stood a few kilometres from here, on the plateau of Serra Orlando.
Visiting
The museum is in the centre of Aidone, in the province of Enna, an hour by car from Piazza Armerina and the villa del Casale; paid ticket, often combined with the archaeological area of Morgantina, with a weekly closing day. An hour.
Our editors' tip
Do the museum and the excavations on the same day, in that order: first the objects, then the empty place they come from. Walking among the houses and the agora of Morgantina, with the statue still in your eyes, you understand what taking a piece from a site really means: you do not only lose the object, you lose the spot where it stood.