Palazzo Reale – Municipal Library – Great War Museum

The building, with a late 18th-century design, faces south, on the square of Crespano, with a long asymmetrical facade, preceded by a short staircase ; the windows articulate the facade into three levels, leaving the vaulted space to the west for a passage to the rear courtyard, where a characteristic well is located. The main facade is animated at the top by a large triangular pediment housing the frieze of the owner, the wool entrepreneur Antonio De Martini, whose family was aggregated to the Noble Council of Asolo in 1804. The building is the result of the union of several contiguous houses that belonged to the Marangoni family (purchased between 1759-1769) and their transformation according to a physiognomy closer to the idea of a Venetian villa. The internal arrangement, in fact, is an example of this, with a large central hall surrounded by rooms with large fireplaces and an elegant stone staircase placed laterally to connect the upper floors. The floors, in the so-called Venetian style, are warm and elegant, and the wooden Sansovino ceilings evoke a certain constructive sensitivity and ambition. The only decorative elements are the stuccos on the piano nobile which, with stylized floral motifs, embellish the internal walls. In 1985, the Municipality of Crespano purchased the property and restored it between 1999 and 2000, converting it into a center for cultural and social activities and opening it to the citizens. It houses the Municipal Library on the piano nobile, which boasts a substantial collection of volumes and intense activities aimed at promoting education and reading awareness ; on the upper floor, the Council Hall, also a venue for conferences and meetings, and the Great War Museum. It hosted the collection of movable type characters of the woodcutter Luigi Melchiori senior, now admirable at the Tipoteca of Antiga Publishing House in Cornuda in the space dedicated to the Luigi Melchiori Donation. The grand name, according to memories, seems to date back to World War I when Umberto di Savoia Aosta stayed in the palace. Here he was struck by the Spanish flu which led to his death in Villa Chiavacci in October 1918.

HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF THE GREAT WAR (1915-1918)
The Historical Museum of the Great War offers an immersive journey through objects and testimonies of daily life on the war front. The collection, composed of a thousand artifacts, recounts the experience of soldiers during the first world conflict of the last century through four thematic sections: rations, field hospital, free time, and the trench.

The heart of the collection is the donation from collector Bruno Xamin, who provided the Municipality with a wide range of original materials: tools, equipment, medical instruments, and everyday objects that provide a vivid picture of the war experienced by the combatants. In recent years, the Museum has been enriched with a new room dedicated to the recently discovered events of Dr. Andrea Marro, a Major Doctor of the Italian Red Cross who, during the conflict on Grappa, devised a complete surgical service on the front line to provide immediate first aid to the wounded and, once operated on, send them for recovery in the rear of the foothills. To complete the museum’s offering, there is a specialized library with over eight hundred volumes and a rich historical, photographic, and cinematographic archive, which form the basis of a documentation center on Grappa during the war. A study and research space open to scholars, enthusiasts, and schools, with an educational section designed to deepen history. A journey through memory to understand, through objects and stories, the reality of war and the sacrifice of those who lived it.