The Rivalta Museum
Currently the Rivalta Castle is made up of around fifty rooms, part of which is open to guided tours, part of which is intended for private residence. Rivalta Castle is open for guided tours every day of the year except December 25th.
Here weapons from periods between the 15th and 17th centuries are kept: pushguns, assault rifles, a collection of pistols, halberds, maces, helmets and various types of armour.
The weapons room
The first room of the Rivalta castle museum contains a collection of weapons from the 15th to the 18th century.
Of considerable value are the Japanese armor that arrived at the castle thanks to the passion of Count Orazio Zanardi Landi, passionate about objects and weapons of particular artistic and historical interest. The rarest and most precious testimonies of the military past that can be admired here, however, are the three banners and eleven small flags dating back to the battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571) which flew on the galleys of the Scotti family, ancestors of the Zanardi Landi, on the occasion of the victorious battle of Lepanto in which the Christians defeated the Turks, despite the numerical prevalence of the latter's ships. In addition to those kept in the Rivalta Castle museum, only one other flag remains in memory of that decisive battle; it is placed today on the altar of the cathedral of Gaeta and is that of the flagship of the papal fleet commanded by Marcantonio Colonna. With the extinction of the Scotti family of Sarmato in 1800, the flags merged into the collection of the Zanardi Landi counts, their heirs.
The sacred art and exploration room
In this room of the Rivalta Castle Museum the most valuable piece is an unusually naked Christ on the cross, made of ebony by Francesco Mochi, a well-known sculptor, renowned among other things for the two equestrian monuments of the Farnese family in Piazza Cavalli in Piacenza. Also interesting are a series of painted wooden statues depicting S. Rocco, S. Fermo, the Virgin Mary and Santa Apollonia. The collection is completed by relics, missals, candelabra and chalices from the church of S. Martino del Borgo di Rivalta.
However, there are also profane objects on display: undergarments, decorations of plumage, teeth, beetle necklaces, a stuffed tarantula and a crocodile, a kind of flute made of animal bone and other exotic objects brought home by the explorer Ermanno Stradelli at late 1800s.
The military costume room
Military uniforms from eras ranging from pre-unification states to 1945 are on display.
The uniforms come from both the Zanardi Landi family and from relatives or collectors (including the Conti and Download families). They are original uniforms, belonging to characters who made the history of Italy. Complete with original armaments, they are displayed on mannequins, to better represent their state of conservation and completeness.
This is a very important collection: over ninety figures, some even on horseback, where the value lies in the authenticity and the load of history that they represent. In fact, in 1848 the Zanardi Landi family played an important role in the history of Piacenza and Italy, even forming a private army called "Legione Zanardi Landi" with which it participated in all the wars and events of the Italian Risorgimento.
