Carmignano, Archaeological Museum of Artimino

The experience of Laboratorio Museotecnico Goppion in action for the “Archaeological Museum of Artimino - Francesco Nicosia” in Carmignano

Florence - a new pole of archaeology has come about in Tuscany: the Archaeological Park of Carmignano, in the Province of Prato, which brings together the new Archaeological Museum of Artimino and the Etruscan monumental sites of the territory, including the Tumuli of Montefortini from the second half of the 7th century BC, one of the most important archaeological monuments in Tuscany, in a single system.

The Goppion exhibition cases that protect the treasures of Artimino inside the new Museum represent the state of the art of display systems for archaeological materials.

Focusing on technology applied to preventive conservation, the display cases created by Goppion for the Municipality of Carmignano are the result of an experience culminating in the layout displays of all the most important Greek museums of this specific type: from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens to the Museum of the Acropolis, including the Museum of Olympia and the Museum of Delphi, and, in Italy, in the apparatuses of the National Roman Museum and the Museum of Santa Caterina in Treviso.

At Artimino, objects of inestimable historical and documentary value - obtained over 2500 years ago from the crafting of organic materials such as the ivory - are safeguarded inside exhibition cases fitted with closing systems that use special articulated quadrilateral hinges.

These systems have been developed to allowing the perfect adherence of the doors to the structure and to guarantee a load capacity that is adequate for the weight of the openable components (which here reaches 80 Kg), ensuring that the requisites of formal lightness and manageability that distinguish Goppion display cases are met.

Together with optimum airtightness, certified in each display case with a double detection method - with ultrasound and with CO2 - the stabilizer devices allow the correct microclimatic parameters to be maintained for the conservation of the precious artefacts, to pass down the future generations documents of the Etruscan civilization, among the most interesting recovered to date.

In the photograph: sandstone memorial stone with warrior in hoplite armour, from Artimino. late 6th century BC.
© Archaeological Heritage Service of Tuscany