Founded in 1875 with the name of “Royal National Ethnographic Prehistoric Museum of Rome”, the Pigorini was Italy’s first national museum. It was opened to the public in 1876 in the building of the Roman College.

According to the intentions of its founder, Luigi Pigorini, the new institution was born to gather in a “central” museum (located in fact in the new capital of the Kingdom, Rome) the documentation of prehistoric Italian, European and extra-European cultures; and to give a unitary scientific approach to Italian palethnological studies and research.

Since its foundation, the “Royal National Ethnographic Prehistoric Museum of Rome” played a fundamental role in promoting and coordinating the excavations of Italian prehistoric sites. These were accompanied by innovative higher education programs such as the creation of the first Italian university chair of Palethnology, and constant scientific dissemination activity. This disclosure resulted in the creation, in the same year the Museum was founded, of one of the first European magazines dedicated to prehistoric disciplines, the Bulletin of Italian Palethnology.

Between 1975 and 1977 the National Ethnographic Prehistoric Museum was transferred to the Palazzo delle Scienze (its first location), to the Roman suburb called Eur. Today the Museum still keep its first division in two sectors: one dedicated to Prehistory and one to non-European Ethnography.

To find out more of the initiatives of the ‘Museo delle Civilta’ – Pigorini, visit its Website.