Museo Archeologico Castello San Giorgio

The Civic Museum of La Spezia was founded in 1873 around a first nucleus of naturalist collections donated by Cesare Pondenzana (1840-1884), Giovanni Podenzana's father. With the encouragement and help of the La Spezia geologist Giovanni Capellini, only three months after its foundation the Museum already housed, besides the zoological collections, the archaeological findings brought to light during the excavations of the basins and docks of the Military Arsenal, as well as some parchments, geographical maps and documents regarding the history of the town. Later, at the turn of the century, there was a considerable boom in palaeo-palethnological research on the territory, conducted by eminent scientists including Giovanni Capellini himself.