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  • Torre dell'Orologio, headquarters of the Museum of the Mining Museum Park, Abbadia San Salvatore.zoom in altra finestra
  • Table illustrating a device for distilling mercury with a partial vacuum, XIX cent., Museum of the Mining Museum Park, Abbadia San Salvatore.zoom in altra finestra

Parco Museo Minerario [Mining Museum Park]

Instituted in 2000, the Parco Museo Minerario is part of the Museum System of Siena. It is sited in the mining area of Abbadia San Salvatore where one of the world’s most important mercury mines operated, and where there are still mining plants and equipment, significant evidence of industrial archaeology.

The collection includes minerals, work tools, documents, objects and photographs on the extraction of mercury and on cinnabar, its derivative. The material is exhibited in the museum venue of Torre dell’Orologio, the first stage of a project that foresees the recovery of the entire mining area and the opening of both a documentary museum in the Mechanical Workshop, and of the Tunnel with the San Callisto shaft.

The institution conserves the archives of the "Monte Amiata" Mercury Extraction Society, of the Morone-Siele-Abetina-Solforate mines, of the "Monte Amiata" Hospital, of the Abbadia plants and the archive of drawings.

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Texts by Stefania Mangia

English translation by Victor Beard

Last update 05/mar/2008