In San Giovanni, in the heart of Bellagio, the Museo degli Strumenti per la Navigazione (Museum of Navigation Instruments) gathers, in an old tower-house, the tools sailors have used over the centuries to find their way.
The museum grew out of the passion of Gianni Gini, an enthusiast of vintage boats and maritime tradition, who over the years assembled a collection of more than two hundred navigation instruments dating from the sixteenth century onwards; the museum’s website speaks more broadly of over 600 nautical objects collected by its founder.
The collection
The route runs over three floors and arranges the objects by function: the first floor holds the instruments used to determine latitude, the second those for longitude, and the third ships’ logs and instruments for plotting a course on charts. Exhibits include compasses and astrolabes, eighteenth-century Venetian telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, an armillary sphere, a brass planetarium and nineteenth-century logbooks.
Practical information
- Address: Piazza Don Miotti, San Giovanni district, Bellagio.
- The museum’s website indicates a winter closure from 15 October to 30 April.
- Opening hours and ticket prices are not given consistently by the sources consulted (September 2026): it is worth checking them on the official website, bellagiomuseo.com, before your visit.
