Museo Diffuso della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, dei Diritti e della Libertà

The Museo Diffuso della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, dei Diritti e della Libertà (Widespread Museum of Resistance, Deportation, War, Rights, and Freedom) in Turin presents themes of wartime resistance, deportation, rights, and freedom from the Second World War onwards in both a local and national context. The museum’s permanent exhibition, “Turin 1938 – 1948: From the Racial Laws to the Constitution,” is a multimedia project including written records, photographs, and audio witness testimony which portrays everyday local life during wartime, German occupation, Italian resistance, and the return of democracy to Italy.

The concept of the “widespread museum” (museo diffuso) refers to the museum’s use of an almost entirely multimedia exhibit – only two physical objects are displayed – in conjunction with connections to physical sites of resistance and memory throughout the city of Turin, creating an “extended” or “widespread” network of remembrance. Photographs and audio testimonies of the Martinetto Firing Range, where partisans were executed from 1943-1945, invite museum visitors to pay witness to the nearby Martinetto Shrine.      

The museum was opened on May 30, 2003, and is located within the historic Quartieri Militari barracks in central Turin, originally constructed from 1716-1728 under the reign of Vittorio Amedeo II, Prince of Piedmont. The same complex also contains the National Film Archives of the Italian Resistance, the Piedmont Institute for History of the Italian Resistance and Contemporary Society, and the Primo Levi International Study Center.