Museum rooms
The Iola museum of Montese is situated over an area of 600 square meters, divided into 16 thematic rooms showing more of 4000 exhibits.
THE BASAMENT
On the basement, in an original context of stone walls, there are six rooms related to the activities and professions of the agricultural civilisation:
- Room G: are displayed the agricultural tools used for working the fields, and animal traps.
- Room I: Display of carpentry and knife sharpening tools.
- Room L: The hall of the cellar and winery hosts all the tools necessary for processing grapes. In the main festivities we set up the hall for a wine-tasting of fine wines
- Room M: The chestnut and all the products resuling from its processing, has been sustaining the population of the mountain for decades. The room houses the wooden shovel of an ancient water mill, tools for processing the chestnuts and a recostructed drying kiln for chestnuts which were the peeled and milled to obtain flour
- Room N: The room, dedicated to the processing of wheat and potato, is concentraded on plows from the middle of 1800's and the first machines to work wheat.
GROUND FLOOR
On the ground floor of the main building there are four rooms relating to rural life, one which houses firearms, edged weapons and pole arms, helmets from the Montecuccoli family branch of Montese can also be seen.
- Room A: the kitchen with stove and everyday objects was the center of social life of the family.
- Room B: In this reconstruction of a bedroom objects, photographs, lace and clothings of the period between mid 1800s and the mid 1900s are exhibited.
- Room C: This room, dedicated to weaving and spinning, boast a superb weaving loom of the late 1800's, as well as objects and typical products used in wool spinning.
- Room D: The work tools used in the trades of the shoemaker and the butcher from 1800's to after the World War II can be seen here.
- Room E: The floor above the barn, originally used to be hay loft, currently houses the conference room, photo exhibition as well as a display of archaelogical finds, minerals and fossils exhibits.
- Room F: Exhibition of helmets, swords and ancient percussion cap, flint lock and wheel plate weapons dating from between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.
FIRST FLOOR
On the first floor of the building there are four thematic rooms referring to the period of World War II, during which, the soldiers of the American 10th Mountain Division and the Brazilian troops (F.E.B.) fought on the ridges of the mountains adjacent to the village, along the second resistence line of the Gothic Line.
- The room O is dedicated to uniforms and equipment of soldiers of the American 10th Mountain Division who where all experienced skiers and rock climbers, their equipment was created specifically for became the first Alpine Division istituited by the U.S. Army.
- In the room P are exhibit objects used daily on the front line by soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division. Some of these objects were found in the trenches where soldiers stationed and fought. Some of the weapons, military decorations and personal correspondence were donated by veterans to complete the exhibition. To note the radio operated apparatus used by the Signal Corp and a diorama that recostructs a first aid station.
- The room Q is dedicated to equipment, military decorations and weapons supplied to the German soldiers of the 231st Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht . In this room are displaying some adaptations of military objects, made by the civilian population after the war.
- The room R, dedicated to the Italian memories, show notebooks, school report cards and other school items in the original packaging of the time as well as uniforms, helmets, military decorations, equipment, pins, medals, coins and objects dating from twenty years before the end of the war, in 1945. In obe showcase, some military objects adapted to civilian use, made by the people to be of assistence in the activities of everyday life.
The back of the building (once a manure deposit) hosts tractors and a threshing machine used from the early 30's until the 70's, it threshed the grain previously massed in a large shaves in the spacious courtyards
A short and suggestive itinerary through the woods , leading from the village square on the ridge of Mount Terminale up to one Oratory which was seriously damaged during the Second World War, refurbished in 1985 by the Montese group of the Alpine Troops with contribution of the population of Iola.
On the right side of the path, which is approximately 800 meters long, there are the foxholes made by the soldiers in March 1945 during the battle to conquer the village of Iola.
