Area 9
PIACENZA COLLECTION
Mario Piacenza was born in 1884 at Pollone, near Biella, not far from Turin, into a family of industrialists dedicated to wool manufacturing from several generations. He carried out various activities in the field of mountaineering and was also the director of the Museo Nazionale della Montagna, a position he held until his death in 1957. His activities relating to the Alps were wide-ranging and prestigious; he devoted particular attention to the Matterhorn, where he realised the first ascent by the Cresta Fürggen.
Mario Piacenza’s Ladakh
“Then the Alps were no longer enough for him, and following the example and spurred on by his cousin Vittorio Sella he was soon attracted to the great mountain groups outside Europe. In 1910 he organised an expedition to Caucasus and to Persia; then, in 1913, he led one into the Kashmiri Himalayas”. He returned from this journey with an extraordinary collection of things concerning the Ladakh people, an exceptional document because at that time the region was practically unexplored. He was also the first to document ethnographic research on film, but unfortunately the film has been lost.
Other halls
Area 5
WINTER MOUNTANEERING
The most extreme boundary is winter mountaineering, which originated on Uja di Mondrone in December 1874 with the ascent of Castagneri, Martelli and Vaccarone. Climbing the mountains in the most unfavourable season meant breaking the final taboo of valley...
Area 6
SKIING AND WINTER SPORTS
Skiing did not originate as recreation, but as a means for moving over the snow for the populations of north Europe. Known and practised in the north for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, skiing arrived in the Alps only at the end of the 19th century, when...
Area 7
MOUNTAINS OUTSIDE EUROPE
The most truthful representation of the dimensions of the Himalayas is offered by the east face of Monte Rosa, which dominates the Macugnaga valley and the plain around Novara. But the day came when not even the Monte Rosa was enough to satisfy the mountaineers. With...
Area 8
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
For almost a thousand years, Alpine civilisation developed in a balanced equilibrium between nature and culture. Man drew resources from the environment without ever going beyond the limits of the resources themselves. With 19th- and 20th-century industrialisation,...
Area 10
THE TURIN 2006 OLYMPIC MUSEUM
In 2006, on the occasion of the XX Winter Olympic Games and the IX Winter Paralympic Games, Turin and its valleys experienced a moment of great appreciation and were at the centre of international attention. The Museomontagna conserves the memory of the sports events...
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