City Ethnographic Museum of Arles

The City Ethnographic Museum of the French city of Arles is located in an ancient building built in the early fifteenth century by the ancient Provencal Castellani family, since 1628 there was a school of the Jesuit Order. After the Jesuit Order was abolished, the building remained empty until in 1899, at the initiative of the French poet Frederick Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning Literature winner, the first ethnographic museum in France was opened here.

The basis of the museum is the collection of Frederick Mistral, which includes many objects and documents from the daily life of Provence from ancient times to the present day. Costumes, furniture, objects of worship and household, dishes and utensils - more than thirty-five thousand exhibits are exhibited today in the halls of the museum, and the collection is constantly replenished. In the courtyard of the museum, archaeological excavations have uncovered the ruins of the ancient Roman forum, open for inspection.