Handicraft
High quality handicrafts can be found throughout the Nure valley, in particular in Grazzano Visconti, where several "schools" of wrought iron and carpentry are still active.
If you are interested in taking home original souvenirs, go for a traditional oboe (piffero) or bagpipes (musa). The tunes played on these instruments, whose origins are lost in the past, can still be heard in the popular festivals of local villages such as Marsaglia, Brugnello, Pianello Valtidone or Vernasca. You can buy them from one of the (few) remaining craftsmen’s shops that still produce them. Nure valley handpainted pottery is another good choice for a memento. Traditional woodwork (such as handmade and inlaid furniture) can be found everywhere in and around Piacenza, but the best place to find interesting things is the antique and collectables market in town.
CURIOSITY
ETRUSCAN LIVER
You might remember from your school books the haruspices who used the en trails of animals to tell the future. Well, the star attraction of the Museo Civico in Palazzo Farnese is a bronze sheep’s liver marked with inscriptions and a division of the skies. It is a unique object dating from the 2nd or perhaps the 1st century BC. It was probably a sort of textbook for students learning the difficult art of divination.
