The historical oil mill S. Dolci dates back to the 17th century and is a precious testimony of agricultural-industrial archaeology. Recently, thanks to a contribution granted by the Marche Region, it has been recovered and restored, then transformed into a museum for tourist purposes, but above all to testify the vocation of Monte San Vito to the production of high-quality olive oil. Located on the ancient "Via Grande" today Via Gramsci in the historical centre, the oil mill is a complex of considerable historical interest, not so much for its architectural features, which cannot be said to be monumental or of high value, but rather for the particularity of having remained over time almost unchanged and equipped with the original equipment.
The oil mill has a simple rectangular plan and is on two floors: the basement of the mill itself and the ground floor used as a storage room for olive harvesting, with the sloping floor and the sewage gutter. The olives, thanks to an opening in the floor of the warehouse, fell into the powerful and heavy stone millstone, dated 1688, operated with the help of draught animals.
The stone millstone rests on a cylindrical brick base with a concave brick extrados and a central wear surface in stone. It is operated by a vertical support upright complete with a wooden upper glass pivot and adjustment wedges and a wooden through-pivot with a drive arm and a wooden sieve.
What was left of the olives after the crushing finished, sometimes with the addition of hot water that helped the extraction of oil, in the fiscoli then pressed by large wooden presses operated by hand.
To the side you can see the wonderful complex of two presses, dated 1770.
