Museo Paleontologico della Rocca

The Museum houses the collection of fossils of the Spelaeological Association Amici Del Fante, which in over 50 years of activity has collected a total of 30,000 items, of which only a small part is on display. The exhibits are arranged over two floors and are accompanied by easy-to-read information panels. The first five showcases on the ground floor are devoted to palaeontology, which is the study of fossils to determine the evolution, climate and structure of our planet and of its earliest life forms. Showcase 6 illustrates the geological structure of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Showcases 7-15, placed on the first and second floors, contain a variety of fossils from different parts of the region, displayed in chronological order.

Showcase 7 displays Carboniferous fossils from Casera For in northern Friuli (Palaeozoic era, 300 million years ago) including several trilobites (the earliest group of marine vertebrates, having a well-developed visual apparatus and a segmented exoskeleton divided into three parts). The exhibition continues with a collection of other animal and plant fossils from the Carboniferous period: brachiopods from Rio Bombaso in northern Friuli (Showcase 8), a group of marine invertebrates of which there are approximately 250 living species; fossils of ferns and Equiseta from Passo Pramollo in northern Friuli; fossils of Psilophita, Lychopodia, Equiseta and Pteridospermae (plants which formed the earliest forests) from Cason di Lanza in Carnia.

On the first floor there is a collection of fossils from the Mesozoic era (from 230 to 65 million years ago). It includes Triassic fossils from Raibl-Cave del Predil and Rio Barbaro near Tarvisio; Jurassic fossils from Boscochiesanuova, Garzon and the Asiago plateau near Verona; Cretaceous fossils from the Triest and Gorizia Karst and from Vernasso near Cividale. Showcases 16-19 display fossils from the Cenozoic era (from 65 million years ago to the present time), divided into Eocene fossils (around 50 million years ago) from the Istria Karst and the Veneto; Oligocene fossils from Monte Baldo near Verona, including a collection of crustaceans; and Pliocene fossils from Cornuda near Treviso (5 millions years ago).