OIL MUSEUM

Evidences of the antique oil tradition in Loreto Aprutino, land of an high quality extra-virgin olive oil

The Oil Museum is one of the Municipal Museums in Loreto Aprutino, opened in 2005, an old oil mill of 1880 renovated.

The oil mill has been built by Raffaele Baldini Palladini, land owner and oil producer, who asked his friend Francesco Paolo Michetti to plan his factory.

Today the Museum represents Palladini’s great work and endless passion for his land and its product, Loreto Aprutino’s oil, a love that brought him to organize his work in the way to be in the forefront in the production of oil during the 19th century.

In fact Palladini understood that to have a product of great quality it was necessary to have a rapid olive milling and to follow the basic laws of hygiene. With these rules he produced a very good oil that made him won many competitions in Italy and in Europe.

From the early 1900s Raffaele Baldini Palladini’s oil began to be exported to the United States and Europe.

In the mill there are two kind of machines related to the two phases of the production system: the oldest machines, the muller millstone, animal traction, and a wood with 3 screws press, and the hydraulic machines of 1920, a muller mill, two presses and a centrifugal separator.

The oil produced in this mill was of different qualities, the valuablest was the oil from the first pressing, then the oil of less quality.