The Museum of the Royal Bourbon Ironworks is a museum of industrial archeology located in the municipality of Mongiana, inaugurated in 2013 and focused on the history of the iron and steel center created during the Bourbon kingdom (18th-19th century).
The Museum includes the Arms Factory, an armory dating back to 1852, created to replace the French gun barrel factory.
Designed by Domenico Fortunato Savino, the access to the Armory is characterized by two Doric columns in cast iron, a distinctive element of particular strength. At full capacity, the factory annually supplied the Bourbon army with 7000-8000 weapons including rifles, pistols and swords
. It was here that a new type of spring-loaded rifle was also born, called the "Mongiana". Ignored and penalized after the unification of Italy, it continued its activity until the mid-1960s, to be downgraded to Officina Trasformazioni and, finally, abandoned.
Visiting the Royal Ironworks and Bourbon Workshops of Mongiana today means re-experiencing that magic begun in 1768 that still continues to influence and dominate events, people, places and perhaps, even, something else.
Museum of the Royal Bourbon Ironworks
Address: Piazza Regina Elena, 89823
Phone: 0963.370501
Site:
http://www.museorealiferrieremongiana.it/ Location inserted by
OM