Antiquarium Arborense - Museo archeologico Giuseppe Pau Oristano

History

The museum Antiquarium Arborense was founded in 1938, when the Municipality of Oristano acquired the archeological collection of Efisio Pischedda, a famous lawyer from Seneghe. 

In 1876, when Efisio Pischedda began to attend the court of Oristano, he found out that his clients were poor but they had many relics.
So he found his vocation: to create an archaeological collection of finds coming from the Phoenician city of Tharros and the Sinis peninsula. When this current ended up, Pischedda gained permission to excavate Tharros from the Direzione Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione. He found an inviolate field: the north necropolis of Tharros, in the current seaside village of San Giovanni. 

The Lawyer gathered the most significant collection of objects from Phoenician tombs ever found in the area of the Western Mediterranean: jugs, plates, oil lamps, small jars for scented oils, Greek and Etruscan pots, gold and silver jewellery, scarabs, iron weapons, etc.
After his death in 1930, there were unconfessed negotiations with the Museums of Berlin, London and the Vatican.
Then, through the intervention of the famous archaeologist Doro Levi, Soprintendente alle opere d’antichità e d’arte della Sardegna, the Municipality of Oristano acquired the Pischedda collection and the Museum of Oristano was named Antiquarium with the adjective "Arborense", referring to the Mediaeval period when Oristano was the capital city of the territory of Arborea.  

But in 1940 Italy entered the Second World War and the archaeological collections were transferred to Seneghe (where Pischedda was born) to prevent them being stolen or destroyed. 

In 1945, after the end of the War, Oristano had a new Museum with the famous scholar Giuseppe Pau as curator until 1989. 

The present Antiquarium Arborense has been in the Neoclassic Palazzo Parpaglia since 1992, in the heart of the historical centre of the city. 

Well! More than that I cannot say. There are a thousand reasons not to get into a museum, but a thousand and one reasons to get into.
 

Raimondo Zucca
 

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