MUMA – Missionary Museum of Amazonia

You’ll find the MUMA – Missionary Museum of Amazonia, one of the most fascinating and unusual venues in the town, near the Basilica of Saint Francis .

The initial project dates back to 1973, when Father Luciano Matarazzi created a permanent, ethnographic and anthropological exhibition of considerable importance. The idea was to collect the copious material that the missionaries used to regularly donate to the town of Assisi on their return from Amazonia.
The current museum, however, is the result of the extraordinary work by the Capuchin Brothers a few years later, which concluded in 2011 and transformed the old project into a unique, multi-media, interactive venue. The spaces have been redesigned, the display cabinets have turned into digital stations and the photos have become dynamic. Moreover, the use of lighting and the introduction of forest sounds have enabled the far-away habitat of the Upper Solimões region to be wonderfully recreated.
Costumes and handmade objects, ritual masks and various examples of Amazonian flora and fauna are on display on different floors of the museum. Many objects, such as flowers, fruit, insects, reptiles and various utensils have been recovered from the previous collection and some of these have been restored, The sound project has been developed on two levels: the speaker’s voice and the room-audio differ in each hall, and are mixed to make each context perfect, in which to tell stories and describe places, objects and people.