The town of Sorrento, a few kilometers away from Massa Lubrense, offers the opportunity to visit numerous museums, monuments, and historic buildings. These famous places contain the most important traditions of the place, the habits, and customs of the population of the area. The three most significant museums are within easy reach and absolutely not to be missed.

Museo della Tarsia Lignea (inlaid wood museum)

The inlaid wood museum showcases traditional colored wood inlays, the highest expression of Sorrento craftsmanship. The exhibition recounts the inlays of the 19th century, exploring materials and manufacturing techniques, and the design and production of the art school. Other sections of the museum reconstruct the image of Sorrento during the Kingdom of Naples, focusing on the layout of the city before the massive and devastating nineteenth-century transformation, on the travelers of the Grand Tour, on customs and traditions, and on the local citrus economy.

In addition to this, there is a workshop that offers the opportunity to admire the dedication of contemporary craftsmen to the ancient art of inlay. Lastly, it is possible to take courses, learn the secrets of marquetry and take your creations home.

The museum is located in an ancient noble palace, in Via S. Nicola 28, in the historic centre of Sorrento.

Website: https://www.museomuta.it/

The museums to visit in Sorrento

Correale di Terranova Museum

Among the museums to visit in Sorrento, the Correale Museum is certainly not to be missed. Inside you can find fine seventeenth-century furniture, enchanting paintings ranging from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, and porcelain from the Capodimonte art school. The section dedicated to the archeology of the necropolis of Sorrento is remarkable: ceramics, prehistoric objects in bronze and Greco-Roman marble.

The Correale Museum is spread over four floors and twenty-four rooms, it is also possible to visit the garden that surrounds the building and the wonderful viewpoint overlooking the gulf.

This museum is located via Correale 50 and the entrance ticket costs €8.

Website: https://www.museocorreale.it/

Villa Fiorentino

It is also worth visiting Villa Fiorentino, built in the 1930s to house the Fiorentino-Cuomo family, famous for their historic embroidered handkerchiefs, typical of the Sorrento artisan tradition. The family decided to use the rooms on the ground floor to exhibit their works, that’s why today the villa is also known as “Villa Fazzoletti” (fazzoletti means handkerchiefs).

As soon as you enter the courtyard, you are immediately captured by the building’s distinctive aesthetics, atypical in Italy, as it recalls the American castles of the late 1800s. The villa is in fact presented in a neoclassical style with neocolonial influences, typical of nineteenth-century South American architecture. Furthermore, it is surrounded by a large garden full of citrus fruits, camellias and roses.

Today it is the headquarters of the Sorrento Foundation and hosts temporary art exhibitions, as well as concerts and open-air theater performances.

Villa Fiorentino is located in Corso Italia 53, the main street of Sorrento.

Website: https://fondazionesorrento.com/villa-fiorentino/