The galley
A full-size oared ship you board and walk through.
Twice25 & Rinina25 — CC BY 2.5 · Benjamin Smith — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ElisabettaCastellano — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ElisabettaCastellano — CC BY-SA 4.0
**The largest maritime museum in the Mediterranean — with a full-size galley and a real submarine you can go inside** — on Genoa's old harbour. ⚠ **It is not a museum of models**: it holds a **full-scale reconstruction of a 17th-century Genoese galley** — an oared warship **you climb aboard and walk between the rowers' benches**. ✅ **And the real submarine *Nazario Sauro*** lies in the water outside — **entered and walked end to end**, ⚠ **and genuinely cramped**. ✅ **The emigration section (MEM)** follows **the journey of Italian emigrants** to the Americas — **with real documents and reconstructions of ships' holds and island processing offices**; ⚠ **and it is the most affecting part of the museum**. ✅ **From its roof there is a view over the whole harbour.**
A full-size oared ship you board and walk through.
A real submarine in the water, entered end to end.
Documents and reconstructions of the Italian emigrant journey.
Calata De Mari 1, 16126 Genoa, Italy
**One of the largest migrations in modern history — and Genoa was its principal door.** ✅ **The scale**: **some 25–29 million people left Italy between 1861 and the 1970s** — **among the greatest population movements of modern times**; **at its peak more than 800,000 left in a single year**. ✅ **The causes**: **severe rural poverty**, especially in the south, **taxation**, **disease in the vineyards**, **and a population surge** after Italian unification — **with not enough land**. ✅ **The destinations**: **Argentina, Brazil and the United States** chiefly, then **Australia, Canada and northern Europe** later. ⚠ **Which is why millions of Italian descent live today in Buenos Aires, São Paulo and New York.** ✅ **Why Genoa**: **it was the main port of departure** for the Americas (with Naples and Palermo) — **the ships left from here**; **and the shipping offices, cheap lodging houses and medical inspections clustered around it**. ⚠ **The voyage was harsh**: **weeks in crowded holds below deck**, **and a medical inspection on arrival that could send you back**. ✅ **This is what the MEM section shows** — **with real papers, photographs and testimony**, ⚠ **and it is genuinely affecting**.
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