The Archaeological and Ethnological Museums were set up because of prehistoric excavations done in the second half of the last century. They open for use in 1871 thanks to the work of the first director, Carlo Boni. The archaeological collections are arranged chronologically and topographically and are composed of works from an advanced moment in the inferior Palaeolithic period to the Middle Ages. Perhaps the most significant are the prehistoric findings, above all the Neolithic ones of Fiorano and Pescale (5th-4th millennium B.C.) originating from the excavations of F. Malavolti, and those of the terramare inhabitants of the Bronze Age.
