Point of Interest
The warrior’s return and other archaeological stories from Capraia
Orari
Open during the summer months from 18.00 to 20.00
Dove
Church of Sant'Antonio, Capraia Island
Contatti
The church of Sant’Antonio is within walking distance, is located in the historic center of the village
An important exhibition highlighting the very long history of Capraia. A frontier land and thus often conquered, an outpost and also a forgotten island, a sea port and a refuge, Capraia was included in the Etruscan and Roman trading routes, was ruled by the Pisans and then by the Genoese, and was also the chief target of raids by the pirate Dragut.
The permanent exhibition is housed in the historic Church of Sant’Antonio, part of the Seventeenth Century San Francesco complex. The church, the facade of which has already been restored, now houses an archaeological exhibition that underlines the island’s very ancient origins.
The church, dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua, and the adjoining monastery of San Francesco, were built by the people of Capraia in the second half of the 17th Century to house a community of Friars Minor. The Church has one nave with six side chapels, and contains an impressive main altar and a choir with an organ built by Giuseppe Lazzari in 1747.
Roman amphorae found on the seabed near the island, household goods and tools from ancient wrecks and the fascinating remains of an ancient warrior and his treasure
Since its restoration, in the last few years this historic interior has housed a series of important archaeological finds discovered on the island and in the waters around it.
The exhibition displays the warrior’s tomb with its grave goods dating from the 5th Century, found in 1988 in the churchyard of the church of S. Maria Assunta by the harbour, together with many finds from the Neolithic up to the 16th Century, both from the land and from the wrecks on the seabed around the island.
Info
How to get there
The church of Sant'Antonio is within walking distance, is located in the historic center of the village
