THE FIRE BRIGADE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF MANTOVA

An extraordinary historical collection of exceptional interest, telling the technical evolution of the Fire Brigade National Corps.

The first and only Fire Brigade Historical Museum opened to the public and housed in a peripheral wing of the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the enormous old stables, where the Gonzagas used to keep their prestigious horses.

The Fire Brigade Historical Museum has got a surface of 16,147 SqFt (1,500 m2) and it is divided into four huge halls, linked together by large open arches. It collects vehicles and mementoes from the 18th to the 20th century, showing the remarkable technical evolution of the means of transport used by the Fire Brigade Corps along these centuries.

The first room (the old ducal stables) shows the most ancient means: the first volumetric pumps, which were operated and drugged, by hand or by horses; a litter  of the 19th century and the Door-Ladder, the first model of aerial ladder. Wonderful Merry Weather steam pump stands out as well as a Magirus aerial ladder. Vehicles dated form 1920 to 1940 are displayed in the second hall: the  Seagrave Continental fire engine vehicle of American construction,  FIAT 502 and FIAT 605 equipped tracks and the FIAT 621P tank truck. In the third hall there are the most imposing means: among them the OM Loc, the APS FIAT 626 and its motor ladder, also GMC and a Schwimmwagen amphibious, a Gilera VLE sidecar and some Guzzi motor-cycles. Right in the centre of the fourth hall, the G 3B-1 47 Bell Augusta helicopter and around it - in some large glass show-cases - a collection of uniforms and helmets from different ages and countries.