The Town Didactic Museum of the Medieval and Renaissance Musical Instruments was inaugurated on August 12th 2000. It represents the results of the Director Gianpiero Catelli's passion for the Medieval Music. The Museum is housed into five rooms of the Ducal Palace where we can admire fifty-two pieces concerning different ages from the VIII° A.D. to the end of the XVI° century.The term "Didactic" means that the instruments are not original, but that they were reconstructed on historical grounds.

The several pieces can be classified into:

• string instruments: the Monochord, scientific instrument ascribed to Pitagora; the Viella and the Rebeck, strings which are the forerunners of the present Violin, Viola, Violoncello e Double bass; the Lute, the Lyre, the gotic and Romanic harp and several psalteries (which will later be turned into Harpsichords, Spinets and Virginals);
• per-cussion instruments: such as the Psaltery, forerunner of the Piano; the Organistrum, the Symphonia, the wheel-Viella and the hurdy-gurdy. These instruments come from strings prototypes where the bow has been replaced by a wheel which makes the strings vibrate after triggered by a handle;
• wind instruments: represented by the three holes Flute, the double Flute, the Recorder, the Transverse Flute, the Cornet, the Pipes and the Launeddas;
• percussion instruments and idiophones: such as the Tamburine, the Tamorra, the Square Drum, the Arrazzi and the Carillon (a very in fashion instrument in the Middle Age, judgying by numerous depictions in the period paintings.)

The Museum aims to introduce people to those sound marvels which are, directly or not, the forerunners of the modern musical instruments.

Traduzione di Claudia Nespoli