The Museum, opened on 3 August 2002, is housed in a building which was once used as the Town Hall and the Primary School, located on the main square in the historic centre of the village.
The minerals on display were collected by the Parish Priest of the village, Don Giovanni Bonomo, who donated his collection to the community; later additions were donated by Giovanni Gaspari, Luciano Mader, Giordano Bernardi, and Felice Braito.
Many of the specimens are very fine, and include cervandonite, gasparite, fetiasite, asbecasite, cafarsite, chernovite, agardite. The collection comprises 3,333 minerals, classified by name and place of origin; they were almost all found in the Antigorio or Formazza valleys, which are famous for their quarries, and especially because they have the deepest known geological structures in the whole of the Alps. The Ossola area is recognised as a place of particular mineralogical interest: over 250 mineral species have been found here.
You can have a guided tour of the museum, and visits to the nearby Uriezzo Gorges can also be arranged on the same occasion.
Opening hours:
Summer, daily, 16.00 – 18.30; other times of year, open on request.