Buti | Oil Mill “Rossoni” and Museum of Rurality

Along the various streams (called “rio”) we come across the old oil mills, buildings designed to extract oil from olives through pressing.

Oil Mill “Rossoni”

One of these is the Frantoio Rossoni, an architectural complex consisting of two buildings between Via Paola da Buti and the Rio Magno, housing the Museum of the Peasant Civilisation. On the north side of the building, the brick “gora” is still visible, under which is the housing for the water wheel, of which the wooden shaft remains, still connected to the internal gears.

The Interior

Inside, there are two well-preserved slaughterhouses for crushing olives and their wooden gears, still connected to the shaft of the external water wheel, as well as three presses for pressing oil.

Fixed to the floor is a motor for the electric transmission of the movement of the millstones. In the room behind, there is a wood-fired boiler to heat the water. Climbing the stairs leads to the attic, presumably used for drying the olives before pressing.