From the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean: it is “Malakos” which, with about 600 thousand specimens catalogued, represents the largest private shell collection in Europe.
The collection, in the Villa Cappelletti headquarters in Città di Castello, is a real exploratory journey through the shells of all seas.
The museum is the result of ten years of work by the biologist Gianluigi Bini, a Florentine by birth but adopted by the world, who has collected and studied about 15 thousand different species from every corner of the planet.
The biology section introduces the world of molluscs with their incredible curiosities, while the paleontology room helps to understand how the earth was formed, allowing you to meet some invertebrates from the distant past.
In the biogeography rooms each display case reconstructs the fauna and life habits of each sea, but not only: it is possible to discover unusual environments such as dangerous mangroves and abyssal areas, to get to know friendly land snails of decidedly extra-large dimensions and marine predators with deadly venom.
Malakos is also home to the reconstruction of a coral reef, made up of materials from the state forest corps seizures, with species never seen before.
https://www.malakos.it/