The Archaeological Museum of Calatia is located in the Casino of Starza Penta, one of the most significant historical and monumental testimonies of Maddaloni and one of the main residences of the Carafa della Stadera who had in feud Maddaloni since 1465.
The Museum was opened in 2003. The archaeological exhibition is on two floors and presents the finds from the necropolis of Calatia and the urban area in a chronological span from the end of the 8th century BC. C. and the late Roman age.
The route of the visit develops on a double track, the archaeological exhibition on one side and the historical building recovered in its volume and in its precious decorative apparatus on the other. On the ground floor, in the rooms that were used for agricultural activities, there is the first section of the Museum dedicated to the territory, the city and the necropolis. The visit continues on the upper floor, in the ancient private and representative rooms and organized in "quarters", where the exhibits bear witness to the history of the road network, of the aristocracy between the 6th and 5th centuries BC. C., the life of women and men in the orientalizing age.
The visit can also be made by the blind thanks to the presence of Braille panelling.
It is also possible to visit the refined eighteenth-century chapel, a small building with a central plan with three marble altars and barrel vault, decorated with white and gold stuccoes. The layout uses a modern multimedia language. In the section dedicated to the road network there is the virtual library, where you can ‘browse’ through volumes illustrating some of the main roads and offering some information on ancient routes, means of transport, post stations and construction techniques.
The ‘immersive’ room follows the reconstruction of the stretch of the Appian Way from Calatia to Rome and projects the visitor into an ideal journey through a space-time dimension.
Educational films run on LCD screens installed in the auditoriums, an interactive multi-touch table introduces you to the visit routes. The printed media are all equipped with QRcode; there are Braille panels, audio/video podcasts in Italian/English for the guided tour of the museum. For schools, virtual games on USB media.
On the museum’s website, virtual tour to visit 360° all the rooms of Palazzo Carafa.
The Museum has received a special mention from the jury of the ICOM Italia 2017 Award for the new layout, the multimedia rooms, the educational activity and the
