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Costantino Beltrami Museum

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Costantino Beltrami Museum

The collection of relics of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, a Napoleonic judge in Macerata, also owned by the Luchetti family, is located on the first floor of the Beltrami-Luchetti Palace.
Costantino Beltrami Museum

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The Giacomo Costantino Beltrami collection is located on the first floor of the Beltrami-Luchetti Palace, where visitors can admire objects and artifacts from the peoples of North and Central America. The items were collected by Beltrami during his travels across the American continent, which led him to discover the sources of the Mississippi River. In the main exhibition hall, many artifacts of indigenous populations are displayed in glass cases.

From objects of the Great Plains tribes—painted hides, bows and arrows, calumets, dagger sheaths, belts with rattles, bags, and horn tools—visitors can move on to Aztec and Mexican terracottas, carved coconuts, stone axes, worked shells, and painted gourds from Mesoamerica and Haiti.

In rooms adjacent to the main hall are displayed a Mexican herbarium, a malacological collection, minerals and stones from Mexican mines, weapons and personal items, and Beltrami’s unpublished manuscript in Italy of his book Le Mexique, which contains a detailed account of his travels in that country.

The collection consists of objects and artifacts from the peoples of North and Central America, highlighting indigenous craftsmanship. From Great Plains tribes’ objects—painted hides, bows and arrows, calumets, dagger sheaths, rattled belts—to Aztec and Mexican terracottas, carved coconuts, stone axes, worked shells, and painted gourds from Mesoamerica and Haiti, as well as a Mexican herbarium, a malacological collection, and minerals and stones from Mexican mines.

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Immagine della destinazione
Immagine della destinazione
Immagine della destinazione

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(Filottrano, August 9, 1889 – Filottrano, November 19, 1969) was an Italian architect.

In 1905, he obtained a license from the equivalent Technical School in Cingoli, and in 1907 and 1908, he was awarded the silver medal and first-grade diploma by the Institute of Fine Arts of the Marche in Urbino for the academic years 1906/1907 and 1907/1908. In 1909, the Ministry of Public Education certified him to teach drawing in technical and normal schools and appointed him assistant at the Drawing School of the Royal University of Cagliari. In the same year, he was assigned as an assistant engineer to the Technical Office of the Municipality of Rome. In 1910, he was among the three winners of the competition for a municipal designer in Biella. In 1911, he was appointed third-class assistant at the Technical Office of the Municipality of Rome and, in the same year, he founded the Manifattura Picena, a factory for artistic ceramics in Rome, at San Salvatore in Lauro.

In 1914, he was a drawing assistant at the Technical Institute in Rome and obtained the license for the special course in architecture and the diploma of Professor of Architectural Drawing with top marks from the Royal Higher Institute of Fine Arts of the Marche in Urbino. in 1915, he passed five supplementary exams for the architecture course at the Royal Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Rome. During his life, he was promoted by the Rome City Council to second-class assistant by merit (1917) and participated in numerous competitions for war memorial monuments (1921). In 1923, he left public service to dedicate himself to freelance professional work. He was appointed Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy and Knight of the Equestrian Order of Saint Agatha (1925). In 1927, he began artistic consultancy at the Maggini furniture factory in Recanati. The following year, he was registered in the professional register of engineers and architects by the Royal Court of Rome. Furthermore, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy (1934), Commander of the Equestrian Order of Saint Agatha (1935), President of the Autonomous Institute for Public Housing in Ancona (1938), Grand Officer of the Equestrian Order of Saint Agatha (1939), and Knight of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (1942). The Minister of Grace and Justice appointed him a member of the Commission for the reform studies of professional regulations for architects in Rome and a member of the National Council of Architects, also in Rome (1951). In 1958, the Minister of Public Education awarded him the silver medal for benefactors of school, culture, and art.

Deeply connected to his native Marche region, he designed notable works in his homeland, including the Ascoli palace in Ancona (currently home to the Consulate of the Republic of San Marino), arranged the Palace of Justice in Urbino, and oversaw the reconstruction of the Town Hall in Fossombrone (a national monument), not to mention the numerous restorations of other important national monuments. He is responsible for the Ester Gigli retirement home in Recanati, the civil hospitals of Filottrano and Sassoferrato, as well as the plans for the transformation of the hospitals in Fabriano and Urbino and the schools in Cingoli and Fossombrone. He designed villas for Senator Pitocco in Rome, the villa for the Sonnino family in Ancona, the churches of Casine di Paterno and Montoro di Filottrano, monumental tombs in the cemeteries of Rome, Forlì, Filottrano, Fossombrone, and San Marino, as well as honorary monuments for war dead, including the one for French soldiers killed in Italy and the large crooked lighthouse in America for the missing of the Lusitania. He carried out significant works at the shipyards of Ancona, Riva Trigoso, Rivarolo, and Palermo, as well as works for the Mira Lanza factories and for Italian sugar refineries. His restoration work for the layout of Piazza del Quirinale, Piazza del Popolo, Palazzo Firenze (headquarters of the "Dante Alighieri" society), Piazza del Cinquecento, and Castro Pretorio in Rome were also noteworthy. His most important activity occurred when, chosen among architects along with the Frenchman Hebrand, he was called upon by the renowned American Hendrik Andersen to plan the creation of a large city that was intended to rise in America after the First World War as a world center for peace. Andersen's passing prevented the realization of the impressive undertaking, and Luchetti Gentiloni's projects partly ended up in America and were partly donated to the Italian state. In the regional field, he was an honorary inspector of monuments in Ancona and president of the Commission for Natural Beauty, a member of the Accolta dei Trenta, a member of the Marche Institute of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, and an academic of the "Catenati" of Macerata. Nationally, he was a member of the National Council of Architects and the governmental Commission for the study of professional laws.

On the fiftieth anniversary of his professional activity (December 1958), the President of the Italian Republic conferred upon him the silver medal as a benefactor of School, Culture, and Art. In the Republic of San Marino, in the first decade of the 1900s, he established a small factory for valuable ceramics in the Fondi area, some of which are now preserved in the San Marino government museum. He was the author of notable works in San Marino, including the renovations at the church and art gallery of the Convent of San Francesco, the Basilica del Santo, the Government Congress Palace, the marble commemoration for Pope John XXIII in the Church of San Pietro, and, the last chronologically but certainly not least in importance, the monument to the great architect Bramante delle Penne of San Marino. He dedicated the last decade of his life here, working with lively industriousness and great artistic capability, and for his activity abroad, he was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit of the Italian Republic. The Sammarinese government also awarded him the title of Grand Officer of the Equestrian Order of San Marino. By descent, he also held the title of Sammarinese Patrician due to the aggregation of his family to the patriciate since 1789.

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A disillusioned Bergamasque patriot, a restless explorer, capable of venturing out alone, almost two centuries ago, into an area of the Mississippi River territory of the Indians, with courage, fortitude, and a red umbrella as a bizarre pass. And of reaching his goal: arriving at one of the sources of the great river.

A compelling story, that of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami (1779-1855), after whom the homonymous county in Minnesota is named. And according to some, he inspired James Fenimore Cooper for his adventure classic, The Last of the Mohicans.

Above all, Beltrami deserves credit for compiling an extraordinary collection of invaluable Indian artifacts, which are still preserved today. [Here is a gallery of images (photos by Daniela Rota).

A Napoleonic magistrate, disheartened by the climate of the Restoration and having escaped hanging on charges of conspiracy against the Papal States, Beltrami decided to become an impromptu explorer in the New World, ascending the Mississippi in a still-wild area, driven by existential torments.

Hundreds of miles in eleven months, almost immediately abandoned in a labyrinth of swamps by guides and an interpreter. He was even robbed of his flintlock, which prevented him from lighting fires to dry off and warm up in the evening.

Forced to drag his canoe immersed in waist-high water, alone, with a rifle, a sword, and a bizarre red umbrella, which became his symbol and functioned as an eccentric pass with the Indians, who evidently considered him protected by the gods for undertaking such a crazy adventure. On August 31, 1823, in the county that now bears his name in Minnesota, Beltrami reached one of the river's sources, naming it after Giulia, a lost and never-forgotten friend.

The first white man to reach that spot, "His true achievement is having traveled that unexplored territory with an exceptionally modern sensibility: recording first-hand testimonies on the degradation that contact with white people was causing among the Indians, particularly with alcoholism. But above all, repeatedly collecting and sending to Italy weapons, tools, clothing, and decorations," says Cesare Marino, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, who reconstructed his story. And who, in September 2013, curated an exceptional visit by Italiani di Frontiera to that collection in Bergamo, which is now considered a treasure even by ethnographers from overseas.

A delayed vindication for Beltrami, whose endeavor was instead despised by his contemporary American scholars, perhaps not without xenophobic prejudices against that romantic explorer so far removed from intellectual circles.

The extraordinary objects collected by Beltrami are currently divided between the collection housed at the Ettore Caffi Museum of Natural Sciences in Bergamo, and the collection passionately created by the late Count Glauco Luchetti Gentiloni (photo below), now curated by his daughter Marzia, at the Beltrami Museum in Filottrano (Ancona), a town in the Marche hills, where Beltrami died.

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The 'Dakota Sioux' exhibition in homage to Giacomo Costantini Beltrami was inaugurated in Filottrano

The exhibition, held at Palazzo Accorretti in Filottrano from November 11, 2023, to January 28, 2024, celebrated Beltrami's connection with the indigenous peoples of America, particularly the Dakota and Sioux tribes, with whom he established a relationship of deep friendship. Homage to the Explorer: The exhibition took place during the bicentenary of Beltrami's journey that led him to the discovery of the sources of the Mississippi. "The Man with the Red Umbrella": Beltrami was known among Native Americans as "the man with the red umbrella" due to his umbrella, which he used to shield himself from the sun and rain, and which was perceived as a magical instrument. For this reason, the route to the exhibition in Filottrano was marked by red umbrellas. Collection and Artifacts: The exhibition presented a rich collection of ethnographic and anthropological objects from the Dakota Sioux tradition, sourced from private collections, offering an insight into the life and culture of Native Americans. Recognition: The Municipality of Filottrano sought to honor Beltrami, a historical figure who was among the first to respectfully document Native culture, in contrast to the offensive and inaccurate literature of the time. A county and a city in Minnesota bear his name.
Img Giacomo Costantino Beltrami
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Giacomo Costantino Beltrami

He was one of the seventeen children of a customs official of the Venetian Republic and was born in Bergamo in 1779. His father intended for him to pursue legal studies for a secure and stable career as a functionary, like himself, but the young Giacomo quickly displayed his intolerance for that old and tedious world. With a rebellious spirit like many young libertarian spirits of the era, he wanted to change the world and went to fight for the Cisalpine Republic, founded by Napoleon. He took part in the first Italian libertarian movements, was imprisoned multiple times, and in 1818 was accused of conspiracy against the Papal States, avoiding the gallows by managing to be acquitted. A man of both action and thought, it is said that, like many restless spirits of the time, he was a Carbonaro (member of a secret revolutionary society), initiated into Freemasonry, and that he worked as a judge in the Napoleonic Tribunals, first in Udine and then in Macerata. He was pursued by Papal gendarmes for being a free thinker, and perhaps the Enlightenment idea of the myth of the noble savage pushed him toward a friendly attitude toward the Native Americans, or "perhaps free and disillusioned by the burden of apparently tolerant and falsely egalitarian ideologies, he surrendered to the natural passion for adventure and lived like an Indian warrior." In 1821, he moved to France, then to London; here too, the situation was confining for his libertarian spirit. In November 1822, he embarked from Liverpool for Philadelphia in the United States of America, carrying a curious red umbrella, which would characterize him throughout his adventure. In St. Louis, fascinated by the New World and the great prairies, he joined the Clark expedition, whose task was to inspect the forts along the upper course of the Mississippi. Traveling on horseback or by canoe, he explored the lands of the Sioux and the Chippewa, where he became known and respected for his courage. He showed great interest and respect for the cultural and social traditions of the Native Americans, even compiling an English-Sioux dictionary and writing interesting works on ethnography and geography. Among these works is “La decouverte des sources du Mississipi e de la Rivière sanglante” (The Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi and the Bloody River), based on his travel diaries. He then participated in Major Long's expedition towards the Canadian border, up to the Red River area, continuing alone toward Red Lake. In an adventurous "ascent," he unveiled the secret of the origins of the world's third-longest river, reaching a point where American pioneers had not dared to go in his desire to discover the origins of the Mississippi, the “Father of Rivers” in the language of the Algonquian Indians. He discovered a small lake that he baptized Lake Giulia in honor of his beloved Giulia De Medici Spada. The figure of Beltrami has not yet been sufficiently studied in Italy; his merits as a geographer and anthropologist have not yet been carefully evaluated. His impressive correspondence includes letters from Jefferson, La Fayette, Chateaubriand, and Constant, some of which are still unpublished. In Minnesota, the state's largest county (Beltrami County) and the mountains containing the sources of the Mississippi bear his name. The Beltrami Collection The Bergamo Library holds the "Giacomo Costantino Beltrami Collection": a mixed fund distributed in seven folders containing documents, travel notes and annotations, press clippings, letters, and various miscellanea; the manuscripts are of notable interest for their rich geographical and ethnographic observations on the visited locations and peoples. The extraordinary objects collected by Beltrami are now divided between the collection at the Ettore Caffi Museum of Natural Sciences in Bergamo and the Beltrami Museum in Filottrano (Ancona). Costantino Beltrami Collection Arriving at the Museum in 1917, after being ceded to the Municipality of Bergamo in 1855 by Giobatta Beltrami, the explorer's nephew, the Giacomo Costantino Beltrami collection is of extremely high historical value, as the objects within it were donated to him by the Native Americans he encountered during his journey in the upper Mississippi River region in the first half of the 19th century. It includes weapons, ritual objects, and everyday items of the Chippewa and Sioux Indians, as well as interesting artifacts that Beltrami brought with him from Mexico and Haiti, where he traveled after discovering the sources of the Mississippi. The presence of the diaries that the explorer compiled during his travels, now preserved at the Angelo Mai Civic Library, has allowed scholars from both Italy and the United States to better understand the meanings and uses of the artifacts and enhance their historical significance through in-depth studies. Part of the artifacts that Beltrami collected during his travels in America are kept at the Beltrami Museum in Filottrano, where the explorer spent part of his life. This is a private collection owned by the Lucchetti family. Invited to Bergamo in 1973 for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, Glauco Luchetti donated three highly valuable artifacts to the Museum.
Img A Project for the Museum of the Mississippi Explorer
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A Project for the Museum of the Mississippi Explorer

A Project for the Museum of the Mississippi Explorer The museum houses artifacts from the populations of North and Central America collected during the voyages that Giacomo Costantino Beltrami undertook on the American continent, which led him to discover the sources of the Mississippi in 1823. On August 31st of that year, he reached the border with Canada at Red Lake. Here he discovered another lake, which he named Lake Giulia (its current name is Itasca), in honor of the noblewoman Giulia De Medici Spada, whom he met in 1809 and who died prematurely; he considered this lake to be the northernmost source of the Mississippi. This is how he described that landscape: "The lake has a circumference of about three miles: it is heart-shaped and speaks to the soul. Mine was moved by it." He collected numerous objects as testimony to his adventures, now preserved in the museum dedicated to him in Filottrano, where he died in 1855, and in the Museum of Natural History in Bergamo, his birthplace, which has dedicated a specific area to him. In Filottrano, the Beltrami Museum, founded in 1979 by Glauco Luchetti Gentiloni, holds artifacts, manuscripts, and various objects—a heritage that will once again be opened to the community and enhanced with a project presented today at a press conference by the Municipality of Filottrano and the Polytechnic University of Marche, with Rector Sauro Longhi, Mayor of Filottrano Lauretta Giulioni, and Prof. Paolo Clini in attendance. THE HISTORY OF BELTRAMI The fascinating story of the explorer Beltrami tells us not only of his spirit of adventure, which led him to know American tribes and peoples, collecting calumets, scabbards, belts, and Aztec and Mexican terracotta, but also of his passion for knowledge, as demonstrated by the manuscript of Beltrami's volume "Le Mexique," which is still unpublished in Italy, containing an account of his journey in that country and housed in one of the display cases. Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, born in Bergamo in 1779 and died in Filottrano in 1855, was an Italian explorer and patriot. It was his talents as an explorer, combined with a good dose of courage and spirit of adventure, that allowed him to discover the sources of the Mississippi River, a place no pioneer had ever managed to reach, by tracing the almost 4,000 km of the longest river in the Americas backward. Several years later, these lands he discovered paid him due tribute by naming both the eponymous county of the current state of Minnesota and the mountains from which the aforementioned river originates after him. It was in Filottrano that Beltrami decided to retire, in the Palace now called Beltrami-Luchetti (Vicolo Beltrami 2), where all his precious memorabilia are located on the first floor. The floor of the beautiful Palace is currently closed for restoration work. The Municipality, together with the owners of the building where the Beltrami Museum is located, has decided to renew the museum, opening it to the city according to new standards of museum utilization. THE PROJECT The project by the Polytechnic University of Marche, which has already begun digital surveys inside the Palace, will address the architectural aspect, the digitalization of the cultural heritage, and finally, the restoration of the ethnobotanical archive (herbarium). It will follow the theme of water to retrace the discovery that made Beltrami famous: the sources of the Mississippi River. This heritage holds value for communities and societies, making its preservation and transmission to future generations important. The unique figure of Beltrami, combined with the particularity of the building, requires an innovative intervention from an architectural, display, museographic, and narrative perspective. The Polytechnic University referents following the project will be: Prof. Gianluigi Mondaini for the architectural part, Prof. Paolo Clini for digitalization and digital narration, and Prof. Fabio Taffetani for the restoration of the herbarium. The goal is field experimentation of the best exhibition and narrative options using innovative tools that simultaneously enhance one of the most beautiful buildings in the city of Filottrano and its unique content—one of the most original collections belonging to a figure whose brilliant adventure is still entirely waiting to be discovered and told. The university, with its expertise, will pursue the objective of the scientific and cultural enhancement of the objects and the herbarium, with attention to naturalistic and ethnobotanical aspects.

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