Ancona: the museum you go through by hand

At the Museo Tattile Statale Omero in Ancona the works on display are made to be touched with your hands, and entry to the museum is free in 2026.

Free in 2026, and the rule is reversed

Entry to the museum costs nothing in 2026, with a separate €5 ticket for the Design Collection, free on the first Sunday of the month. All prices here are in euros, checked on September 2, 2026.

The instruction at the door is the opposite of the one you have obeyed in every other Italian museum. You put your hands on the sculpture. Copies and originals alike are chosen and mounted so that a shape can be read by the palms.

The word in the official name is tattile, tactile, and the whole layout follows from it. For a sighted visitor the effect is odd and then useful: a bronze read by hand tells you things your eyes have been guessing at all week.

Hours that trip people up

The museum opens Tuesday to Saturday from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, and on Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm (15:00 to 18:00 and 10:00 to 18:00 on Italian signs).

That afternoon-only pattern on weekdays is the detail that ruins mornings. From April 1 to October 31 the Friday opening moves earlier, to 2:00 pm, and that is the only weekday exception.

Sunday is the long day, ten in the morning to six in the evening, and it is also the day the Design Collection is free if you land on the first Sunday of the month.

The building is a plague hospital on an island

The Mole Vanvitelliana is a pentagonal lazzaretto, a quarantine station, designed by Luigi Vanvitelli on an artificial island in the port: first stone laid on July 26, 1733², works finished in 1743², close to 20,000² square meters of floor.

It was built outside the old walls, deliberately, because Ancona was a free port under pope Clement XII and cargo and crews had to be held apart from the city before they could enter it. The pentagon and the water around it are quarantine engineering, not decoration.

Today it holds cultural and musical events, and it is accessible to visitors with disabilities thanks to ramps in all its halls. The address is Banchina Giovanni da Chio 28.

Getting there, and what the address means

The address is Banchina Giovanni da Chio 28, in the port area, which is not the same thing as the old town of Ancona. The Mole stands on its own artificial island, outside the line of the old walls, because that is where a quarantine building had to be.

Ramps run through all the halls and the Comune lists the building as accessible to people with disabilities. Given that the museum inside it is designed to be visited by touch, the accessibility of the container is part of the design rather than an afterthought.

Give the address rather than the name if you are taking a taxi. The building has three identities, lazzaretto, event venue and museum, and only one of them is on the street sign.

The Mole has no published opening hours

The Comune of Ancona publishes no opening times for the Mole Vanvitelliana itself: the 20,000² square meter building opens according to the events it hosts, and the listed contact for that information is cultura@comune.ancona.it.

That is worth an email before you come, because the museum inside has fixed hours while the courtyard and halls around it do not. Two different schedules, one address.

The rest of Ancona sits above the port on a hill; the Mole is at sea level in it. See things to do in Ancona for what fits either side of an afternoon here.

↑ Contents