The Museo delle Grigne is the Esino Lario museum and it stages collections that give a sense of the geological events and the history of man in a local key.
It offers the public a natural history pathway (caves, fossils, minerals, natural settings of the climatic zones from the lake to mount Grigna and the butterfly and insect house in the adjacent Villa Clotilde), an archaeological section documenting human presence in the area, with special attention paid to Celtic and Roman settlements, an area about the history and activities linked to the presence of iron in Valsassina and another of daily life and work in Esino up to the beginning of the 20th century; lastly there is testimony to the village’s more recent developments, such as the renowned Tapestry School and Wikimania, the international gathering of Wikipedians held in Esino Lario in 2016.
The Museo delle Grigne was created in 1947 by the then parish priest Don G.B. Rocca. It was established in 1959 in the village square by the engineer Pietro Pensa with the enrichment of new collections. Since 2016 the Museo has been housed in the grounds of Villa Clotilde. In the former premises there is a reconstruction of a typical hut, known as a casel, which was once a regular feature of the hay meadows dotted around the village.
The Museo delle Grigne, one of over thirty museums belonging to the Sistema Museale della Provincia di Lecco, is part of the Ecomuseo delle Grigne and its heritage is further enhanced by the Centro di documentazione e informazione dell’Ecomuseo.