Duilio Cambellotti Museum

The Duilio Cambellotti Civic Museum is located in the building of the Ex Opera Balilla which overlooks today's Piazza San Marco, formerly Piazza Savoia, designed by Oriolo Frezzotti in 1932. It is a building consisting of two floors in the front divided into a semicircle, with an adjoining gymnasium 40 meters long and 12 meters high. Renato Ricci, a former ardito of the "Great War", also collaborated in the design of the building. Before becoming a museum, the building served several uses: Barracks GIL (Italian Youth of the Littorio) in 1937; a place of worship during the Allied bombings that damaged the Cathedral of San Marco and, during the Second World War, a refuge for the displaced. Between the 50s and 70s of the twentieth century it became a gymnasium for the schools housed at Palazzo Emme and, finally, in the 80s a branch of the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome.

In 1984 the exhibition Duilio Cambellotti sculptor and Agro Pontino was set up in the building, where more than thirty sculptures by the artist were exhibited, including La Pace and Il Buttero. From that moment the relationship between Latina and Cambellotti becomes closer. About 10 years later, at the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, some of his works find place thanks to the donation of his heirs and the purchases made by the Municipal Administration.

From this nucleus of works, in 2005, the Duilio Cambellotti Civic Museum was born. The inauguration took place on October 15 of the same year with the layout curated by the architect Franco Ziliotto. The museum collects sculptures, drawings, ceramics, books, medals up to posters and letters documenting the relationship between Duilio Cambellotti and the Pontine territory. The central core of the museum are the original cartoons and sketches in tempera, pencil and ink that tell the creative process of the Redemption of the Agro in 1934, created by the artist for the Government Palace of Latina, today's Prefecture in Piazza della Libertà .

Today, thanks to the funding of the Lazio Region which allowed the creation of the Integrated System of the Foundation and Agro Pontino and Romano Cities and the enhancement of the Duilio Cambellotti Civic Museum, the Museum becomes a coordination center on the territory, for the network of museums of the City of Foundation and the revaluation of the territory also in terms of tourism and a documentation center to build a collective memory and a citizen identity. Finally, the Museum is also a permanent training center which, thanks to a series of activities, creates new professional skills intended to work towards the enhancement of the local and national cultural heritage.