The Museo delle Donne, Merano's Women's Museum, is in the centre of the town, in piazza del Grano, in a former convent of Poor Clares, and is run by the association of the same name. It was founded in 1988 by Evelyn Ortner, who first set it up in a building under the Portici. The association has existed since 1993; in 2011 it moved to the seat in piazza del Grano, where with the help of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano and the town council a museum arranged on two floors was created.
What to see
The permanent exhibition tells the history of women over the last two centuries, within the social and cultural setting in which it unfolded. The objects are clothes, accessories and things of everyday life: materials that historians had left aside because they came from the private sphere. The aim is not to represent the whole of women's reality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Western society, but to make images and roles visible.
One room is reserved for temporary exhibitions, devoted to specific women's themes, which explore historical aspects or take up present-day debates. The museum also has a specialist library, constantly growing, and organises seminars and conferences.
Visiting
Opening times and tickets should be checked on the museum's website.
Our editors' tip
In 2008 the first international congress of women's museums was held in Merano, and since then this museum has coordinated the network that brings them together, the International Association of Women's Museums, with more than thirty members around the world. The network's patron is Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
