From the Mona Lisa to the bora: Italy's Museum Portal spotlights

From the Mona Lisa to the bora: Italy's Museum Portal spotlights cultural gems

Born in 2017 and developed by art historian and communicator Simone Feneri, Project Pelago — the Italian Museum Portal collects and presents museums across Italy, offering practical guides and curated suggestions to visitors. What started as a small initiative has grown into a widely consulted resource.

The portal features profiles of national landmarks as well as smaller, often surprising sites, organized into thirteen categories to help users choose destinations. Feneri runs a weekly column, #TiportoAlMuseo, every Saturday, recommending a museum and providing a short preparatory guide for visits.

• Museum of the Bora (Trieste) — documenting the history of the wind in the Adriatic city.
• The tiny Gioconda Museum in Val Veddasca (Cadero) — a micro-museum tied to a local story about the Mona Lisa.
• Musaba (Mammola) — an experimental contemporary art laboratory in the Aspromonte area.
• Fondazione Macte (Termoli) — housed in a former market, with over 400 works from post-informal to abstraction.

While ISTAT registers almost 5,000 museum structures, Feneri suggests the true figure could be much higher when including private collections and newly established sites. With around 250,000 views and more than ten thousand social followers, the portal aims to promote cultural tourism and make museum visits more accessible and appealing.