Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran

Exterior of Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

The first collections on the history of seafaring in Piran-Pirano were presented to the public back in 1954, when the Piran Municipal Museum first opened its doors. It was renamed as the Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum in 1967, and since then the museum has conducted extensive research into Slovene maritime history and maritime archaeology. It has thus gathered an important collection of tangible and intangible cultural heritage connected with either seafaring (from its technological and ethnological dimensions to the related artistic work) or with maritime economic branches like salt-making, fishing and naval trade.

The bulk of the museum collections is housed in the 19th-century Gabrielli Palace, but quite a few of its collections are also presented elsewhere.

Background

The museum is named after the war hero Sergej Mašera (1912–1941), artillery officer in the former Yugoslav army and a lieutenant of the warship Destroyer Zagreb.

The Gabrielli Palace, built in the middle of the 19th century, stands on the south-east side of the inner harbour of Piran. The façade is marked by a central axis and enriched with classical elements, though the effect is reduced by its unfinished north wing. A columned stone staircase shapes the inside of the palace, decorated at piano nobile, or the "noble floor" with original paintings and stuccos.

Venues

Aside from the Gabrielli Palace, there is the Tona's House, an old Istrian dwelling in the village of St Peter, renovated and opened as an ethnological collection in 1981. Another branch museum collection was opened in 1991, following the renovation of a house in the Sečovlje saltpans; in the following years other houses in this location were renovated and the number of the saltpans increased. The museum also manages the Piran based Tartini Memorial Room, the birthplace of the composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini. There is also another collection of ship models in Izola in the Museum Parenzana, and a renovated sailing boat, parked in front of the museum.

A new location was established in 2011 in the former Monfort salt storehouse. It houses a collection depicting traditional shipbuilding and the development of water sports.

Monfort Salt Warehouses Portorož, an exhibition space for the Collection of Traditional Shipbuilding and the Development of Water Sports of the Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran and Obalne galerije - Coastal Galleries exhibitions and festivals.

Collections

If not indicated differently, the following collections are held on display on the three stories of the Gabrielli Palace : the archaeological collection, with its permanent exhibition Between Land and Sea; the salt-making collection in the Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje; the ethnological fishing collection of pictures and objects dealing with sea-fishing at Izola and among in the wider Slovene ethnic territory from Trieste to the Timavo River; the art history collection of Gabriel Gruber's (1740–1805) ship models, seamen's votive tablets and ship figureheads; the maritime history collection of early maritime history, Austrian and Austro-Hungarian period, and of Slovene mariners in 1918–1945; the collection of Splošna plovba Portorož in Portorož (temporarily closed) ; the ethnological collection in the Tona's House; a library of 14,000 books, held at a research library, the town archives and the old Civic Library, Biblioteca Civica di Pirano. Many books date back to the 16th century, the oldest one being from 1501. Among the most interesting books are the comprehensive late 18th-century Encyclopaedia by Diderot, and the only fully preserved Atlas from 1526 by Pietro Coppo from Izola.

Since 1995, the harbour of the port of Piran in front of the Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum houses the museum's first renovated ship – the yacht Seagull [Galeb] (of the cutter M6 type), previously owned by world-famous ballet dancers Pia and Pino Mlakar. In 2004 Seagull won the old-timers boat race in Trieste.

The exhibition on traditional shipbuilding and the development of water sports is toned by the atmosphere of the old salt repository which in it day was full up to the roof. It is set at the Monfort Exhibition Space in nearby Portorož and features old wooden boats as well as different ship carpenter's tools, sketches, documentary photos and scale models. The other part of the collection presents the sport vehicles, sailors, posters, diplomas, etc., of different water sport competitions.

International cooperation

The Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum is a member of the International Congress of Maritime Museums (ICMM) and a founding member of the Association of Mediterranean Maritime Museums (AMMM).

Publications

The museum publishes monographies and catalogues of temporary exhibitions concerning maritime topics. In 2009 the museum started publishing a serial publication Izvestja pomorskega muzeja Piran = Strenna del Museo del mare di Pirano. Museum experts also frequently publish their articles in the Annales Journal.

Award

A documentary produced by Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenia) Solinarke (Salt Harvesters), used the documents of the Sargej Mašera Maritime Museum as well as Koper Regional Museum to outline the story about the women who were working at the salt panes in Piran. The short film was awarded the Making a Story from Archives Category Best Feature Award in 2019, bestowed by the COPEAM, the Permanent Conference of the Mediterranean Audiovisual Operator in Bucharest

External links

Gallery

Entrance to Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje, 2020.

Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje, 2020.

View of Museum of Salt Making, Sečovlje, 2020.

The Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum located in the neo-classicist Gabrielli-De Castro Palace in Piran/Pirano

Shipbuilding tools from a collection of traditional shipbuilding and development of water sports on display in the former repository of salt Monfort in Portorož, managed by Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran

Ship log of commanding officer of the Sankt Georg cruiser, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Ship model exhibited at Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Exhibition entitled Shipbuilding in Piran, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Monfort Salt Warehouses Portorož, an exhibition space for the Collection of Traditional Shipbuilding and the Development of Water Sports of the Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran and Obalne galerije - Coastal Galleries exhibitions and festivals.

Archeological collection, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

A view of the underwater finds from the archaeological collection, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Exterior of Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Interior of Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Permanent collection, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Ship models from the workshop of the Jesuit priest Gabriel Gruber exhibited at Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Ship model from the workshop of the Jesuit priest Gabriel Gruber exhibited at Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran, 2020.

Entrance to the Tartini Memorial Collection, Piran, 2020.

Ivan Skušek and his wife to be Tsuneko Kondō Kawase in Beijing, between 1918–1920. (The photo is kept in the library of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, the original is kept by Skušek's great-nephew Janez Lombergar.)

An antique postcard depicting Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in Port Said, Egypt, the stopping point for nearly every ship that sailed through the Suez Canal. Ivan Koršič Postcard Collection, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran.

Postcards like this one from Shanghai's Yu Garden were a common way for navy personnel to share their travels with those back home. Ivan Koršič Postcard Collection, Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran.

Exterior of Tona’s House, 2020.

Information board, Tona’s House, 2020.

Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran

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