Guspini, Montevecchio mine, direction route

The Montevecchio mines, rich in lead and zinc, were, until the sixties of the twentieth century, among the most important in Europe. Today, as part of the Sardinian Geomineral Park, they are recognized as a “World Heritage Site” by UNESCO, and they acquire additional celebrities such as successful film sets -"The Son of Bakunin”, based on the novel by Sergio Atzeni- and because they are inserted in a natural, marine and mountain setting, of rare beauty: with sandy dunes, wild deer, Mediterranean scrub and undergrowth with various botanical species. The mining activity, undertaken around the mid-19th century, when King Carlo Alberto granted the perpetual concession to Giovanni Antonio Sanna from Sassari, with its intensification over time, led to the rise of an important and advanced building, industrial and civil context: the homes of the miners, the hospital, the church, the sports fields and the cinema, the ballrooms and the restaurant, the hotel and the Art Nouveau building, now a museum. Designed and built by the will of Sanna himself between 1870 and 1877, in the town of Gennas, the management building was the beating heart of the Montevecchio mining plants. According to the original idea, it should have housed the administrative offices, a small church and the home of Sanna, who never actually lived there, since she died in 1875, two years before the end of the work. Initially, the building was home to the offices on the ground floor, the archive on the first floor, the director's home on the second, and, in the attic, the servants' quarters. Over the years, it lost its housing function and was almost entirely used as offices. The intended use involved the loss of many wall paints, covered by lime whitewash, now partly brought to light thanks to targeted recovery interventions. The visit unfolds through the three floors of the house, beautifully frescoed in Art Nouveau style, which offer the reconstruction of the period furniture located in the various rooms: dining and tea rooms, smoking rooms, bedrooms and a series of living rooms, study and library. The blue room or meeting room is the real protagonist of the building: intended for official meetings and receptions, it owes its name to the decorations (frescoes and stuccos) that adorn the walls and the vault. Around one of the apartment's many fireplaces, there is an elegant living room with armchairs, sofas and golden mirrors that, together with a majestic grand piano, give life to the environment, once the scene of parties and musical evenings. Contrary to what happened in the rest of the building, the room has been kept intact in its majesty, as an executive and representative room.
A few steps and the visitor leaves the bourgeois glories to reach the attic, where the most modest but no less interesting rooms are set up, intended for servants, who worked and lived in the Management: the large kitchen, which shows numerous copper pans and utensils hanging on the walls, the small dining room and the bedrooms, furnished in a simple and functional way.

Why it is important to visit it
The visit to the Palace offers an interesting cross-section of the lifestyle of the mine director's family, perfectly in line with the Italian and European upper-bourgeois standards of the time and far from the ways of life of servitude, as demonstrated, within the same building, by the planning of the spaces and the furnishing choices.

Tag

Structure category: industrial archeology

Content type: Sites or plants

Usability: Open

Province: Sud Sardegna

Common: Guspini

Macro Territorial Area: South Sardinia

POSTAL CODE: 09036

Address: piazzale Rolandi, 1, località Montevecchio

Telephone: +39 070 9760215 +39 338 4592082

E-mail: info@minieradimontevecchio.it

Website: www.minieradimontevecchio.it/direzione-montevecchio.html

Facebook: www.facebook.com/minieramontevecchio

Instagram: www.instagram.com/minieramontevecchio

Special openings:

Information on tickets and access: For always updated information on all visiting hours and to view other cumulative ticket offers on multiple tour routes, it is advisable to consult the manager's official website. Online reservations can be made at the following link. The tours are guided by G.T. regularly registered in the regional register, access to the routes independently is not allowed. The Management Journey has an average duration of 30 minutes. The infopoint/ticket office is located in the village of Montevecchio, in front of the management building. Not all areas of the route are accessible to people with reduced mobility. Pets are allowed in the management route, hoping for maximum respect for property and other people visiting. Information on departure times: The departure times of the various guided tours allow them to be carried out in succession, for example starting at 10:15 with the Tour Direction, you can participate in all the other morning tours ending your experience at 14:15. Force majeure may cause the daily schedule of visits to vary. For the departures of guided tours, towards the various routes, contact the Infopoint of the village of Montevecchio in Piazza Rolandi, 2. Guided tours are also available in English, French, German and Spanish. The duration of the visit of a route of your choice is approximately 45 min.; of two routes of your choice approximately 90 min.; of three routes of your choice approximately 135 min.; of four routes of your choice approximately 180 min. There are five structured routes: Palazzo della Direzione, Piccalinna, Officine, Sant'Antonio, Galleria Anglosarda.

Access mode: For a fee

Tickets :

Integer : 5 €, grownups, Direction path .

Reduced : 3.5 €, groups over 20 people, children from 7 to 12 years old, adults over 65 years old., Direction path .

Freeware : 0 €, minors from 0 to 6 years old, all routes .

Services information: Guided tours will always be available in ITA and ENG (except in rare cases of exceptional influx). Guided tours in other languages (FRA-DEU-ESP) will be available upon prior request or subject to daily availability.

Update

22/4/2024 - 20:05

Services

Teaching room