The Patroni Museum rises at the heart of the town of Pula.
It is housed in an old building in the form of a horseshoe surrounding an open countryard, the typical layout of the south of the Campidano Plain.
In the 1930s, Cristina Frau, the daughter of Agostino Fraum a former mayor of the town, donated the intire building to the Sisters of the Sacred Family, who used the large rooms as a nursery school.
Later, it became a secondary school and after that the local administrators used it for a variety of purposes: first as the municipal library and then as public offices.
Since 1985, it has housed the Civic Archaeological Museum named for Giovanni Patroni, an illustrious scholar who directored excavations in Sardinia and was the superintendent of the Royal Archaeological Museum in Cagliari at the beginning of the 20th century. His was the first important work on the Phoenician and Punic town of Nora published between the end of the 19th and the beginnig of the 20th centuries.
The rooms used for the first museum exhibits have recently been renovated and reorganized to facilitate fruition by visitors of the important material on display.
The main purpose of the museum today, entirely devoted to the town of Nora and the land around it, is to illustrate to best effect the artefacts in daily use among the ancient inhabitants of the town, Which are now arranged clearly and simply in chronological order, and the message “ relaxation with culture” proposes to introduce visitors into a “sacred” place that is confortable and relaxing while at the same time respects the educational and cultural purposes of a museum.
Of course visitors must be made aware of the close connection between the archaeological site at Nora and the Museum in which the artefacts brought to light there are housed.
We can appreciate material originated from the necropolis of Nora (punic and roman) included in these the gold leaf with the image of the Gorgon which has become the logo of the museum, and some example of amphora's recuperated from the sea bed facing the costal zone of the city of Nora.
The museum is in a stage of further enlargement to allow for a more ample and complete exhibition, and forsees the fitting out of a retoration laboratory also open to expert and curious visitors.