The Museum occupies three locations.
MANAGEMENT OFFICER
Exhibition area of 300 m.sq. in the "Palace of the Arms Governor" with finds that have linked their history to the city of Palmanova and the region Friuli.
PORTA CIVIDALE
The austere façade in white and grey ashlar of Porta Cividale is characterized by two "sentry" turrets used as guardroom. Along with Porta Aquileia (named in the past Maritime) and Porta Udine, it constitutes the unique entrance to the city; there are attributed to the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi. The doors had got separated and independent floors to control and defend the entrance to the fortress. At the ground floor the building has got a central square courtyard, with niches on either side used in the past as fireplaces, and an upper part named "Dongione" with supervisory functions. You can enter the exhibition area of 400 m.sq., situated on the upper part of the Door (Dongione), from lateral flights: the flight on the left permits to reach the entrance of the exhibition part. The museum path includes a series of testimonies documenting the foundation of the city-fortress and the presence of garrisons from 1593 to present. The wooden reproduction of culverins and firearms date back to the Venetian period (1593-1797). Documents and drawings describe the iconography of venetian militias composed of halberdiers, pikemen, musketeers, cernide, bombers and horseback militias. The sections dedicated to the Napoleonic period (1805-1814), the Austrian period (1814-1866) and the Italian period (from 1860 to present) exhibit uniforms, weapons and military relics.
THE AREA OF FORTIFICATIONS
This area of 386000 m.sq. includes the main elements of the three fortified walls (Baluardo, Rivellino and Napoleonic Lunetta) that it is possible to visit. Appropriate signs permit to follow a path that leads to the Bastion Loggia "Del Monte". From an architectural point of view, it is interesting the inside of the building that in the past was accommodation and watchtower: you can see the stone shelves and the niche with fireplace. Then you reach the top of a bulwark that offers an overview of the defensive system of the fortress. The external path continues towards the left side of the bulwark where another loggia with "sortie ramp" permit to descend along the fortification sector "open sky". The different fortified elements of the city are visible: the curtain, the knight (elevated position on the curtain for long thrown artillery), the rampart (terreplain with a square for the artillery and munition stores for the dust deposit), the falsabraga (terreplain parallel to the curtain wall used to hide the soldiers' movements from the internal fortifications to the external ones), the moat (ditch separating the first ring of fortifications to the second venetian defensive line), the rivellino (terreplain external to the curtain and protected by a moat with a square for the artillery, munition stores for the dust deposit and underground tunnels). From the square of the rivellino you arrive to the road that leads directly to the Napoleonic Lunetta, the third fortified line realized at the request of Napoleon by the French Engineer Corps in 1805-1806. The central structure, named "caponier" with two positions for the fortress cannons, is protected on its sides by two stone places with covered vault called "casemates". It is possible to reach the Lunetta through the external road or a suggestive underground path in tunnel or "mine".