What time does the Licorice Museum in Atri open?

In brief

Licorice is the emblematic typical product of Atri. A museum to tell its story was promised in 2017, funded with European money in 2021 and kept appearing in the title of the works until June 2025. Then the covered market was inaugurated, and the museum was no longer mentioned. This dossier reconstructs, document by document, what happened.

Continuity. The whole chronology of this dossier concerns the same political area, in government in Atri since 2008: mayor Gabriele Astolfi (2008-2018, re-elected in 2013 with the list “La Nuova Sfida”, with Piergiorgio Ferretti as deputy mayor), then Ferretti as mayor (elected in 2018 with “Atri La Sfida Continua”, in continuity of majority according to press reports, confirmed in 2023 and 2024, with a period of commissioner administration in the first half of 2024). This is context for reading the timing and the responsibilities, not a judgement on the people involved.

The product: six centuries in a root

The first document that mentions licorice in Atri dates from 1433: a parchment in the chapter archive that cites a district called “Revolizia”. According to local sources, it was the Dominican friars who, in the Middle Ages, extracted the juice from the root that grows on the clay of the Calanchi. Industrial processing began in the nineteenth century (1836 is the date given for the cavaliere De Rosa) and continues with the Menozzi De Rosa factory.

The announcement: the Ducal Stables (2017)

In the spring of 2017, after the event “L'oro nero d'Abruzzo, la liquirizia di Atri” (Abruzzo's black gold, the licorice of Atri) curated by the director of the Calanchi Reserve, Adriano De Ascentiis, the then councillor for culture Domenico Felicione announced, according to press reports, a museum “in some rooms of the Ducal Stables, entirely dedicated to licorice”, to be created in collaboration with the Menozzi family. The article reporting it gave no costs, no funding and no opening date.

The money: the project “Sulle vie della Doganella d'Abruzzo” (2020-2021)

The location changes. In 2020 the press reported a grant from the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme (PSR) of the Abruzzo Region (measure 7.4.1, basic services for rural populations) for a project by the Municipalities of Atri (lead partner), Crognaleto, Montefino and Elice. For Atri: the renovation of the former covered market in piazza Tini and, together with it, a “Museum of Licorice and Ancient Traditions”. In November 2020 the total was about €1.6 million (about €750,000 for Atri); after a long process due, as the then councillor for assets Alessia Faiazza recalled, to an error in the evaluation of the scores, the Region awarded the final grant with two determinations of 13 and 16 April 2021: €1,125,448.36 for the whole project. The Municipality states that the work is “built entirely with regional funding”.

On 20 April 2021 the mayor Piergiorgio Ferretti and Domenico Felicione said they were very pleased with the final approval. The press gave “about €600,000” for the museum. In October 2024, however, the documents show that the regional share of Atri's intervention (market and museum) is €519,777.22, plus €1,326.65 of municipal co-funding.

The works in brief

The first two tenders, in December 2021 and February 2022, failed. The third, in summer 2022, was awarded to Tecma s.r.l.s. (€455,164.49 including VAT). The contract was signed in January 2023, six months later, and on 10 July 2024, eighteen months after signing, it was terminated by mutual agreement. The remaining works were re-tendered in autumn 2024 to L.P.G. S.p.A. (€377,409.49 plus VAT) and the market was inaugurated on 15 September 2025: four years and five months after the grant was awarded. “Consensual termination” means that the parties ended the contract by mutual agreement: in the documents we have, no breach by the company is recorded. How much was paid to the first company, what part of the works it had carried out and why the contract ended cannot be seen in the documents. The detail, act by act, is at the bottom of the page.

What happened to the museum

The museum is in the title of the works up to the last document we found (June 2025): “Renovation of the former covered market building and adaptation of the museum of licorice and ancient traditions”. Then, in the documents that follow, it disappears:

• Inauguration, 15 September 2025. The press speaks of a “new covered market”, a space for farmers and local producers. No mention of the museum.
• List of the Municipality's buildings, end of 2025. The market in piazza Tini is listed among the “buildings with various uses”, as “Market and associated premises”. The cultural buildings are the Municipal Theatre, the former Fioranelli Silk Mill, the Ethnographic Museum and the Church of the Fallen. No licorice museum.
• Planning document 2026-2028, December 2025. The plan envisages an “integrated museum system” that includes the historical-archaeological, ethnographic and musical heritage, industrial archaeology museums such as the former Fioranelli Silk Mill and the future Italic Ecomuseum, up to the “open-air museum” of Casoli Pinta. The word “licorice” never appears.
• Summer 2026. In the list of sites open from 1 July to 13 September, the Licorice Museum is not there.
• Upper floor, June 2026. On 1 June 2026 the mayor Piergiorgio Ferretti announces the ITS Academy for Sport, two-year post-diploma courses, “in the upper part of the former covered market in piazza Tini”, and the Municipality is looking for funds to complete, at Palazzo Cardinale Cicada, the spaces that will host the students. The articles give no start date, no number of students, and no agreement, rent or call for the premises; they mention neither the museum nor the European funding.
• Direct observation, 18 September 2026. The founder of OpenCivTech, a citizen of Atri, who signs this dossier, has bought cheese on the ground floor of the former market every Friday for years, from the same seller. On 18 September 2026 on the ground floor there was the cheese shop, on the upper floor nothing, and no museum. It is a first-hand finding by someone who frequents that place every week; the Municipality can disprove it by showing the museum. The upper floor may be empty because the course has not started yet: the start date is not public.
• Ethnographic Museum, September 2026. The RIABITA project (€350,000 from the CDP Foundation, lead partner the cooperative Formatalenti) turns it into a centre with coworking, a youth desk, workshops and a digital archive of intangible heritage. Here too, the licorice museum is not mentioned.

We therefore find no news of an opening, no management call and no date. It might exist in another form, or the market rooms might host it: that is why we ask, but as things stand in the documents, the museum that appeared in the title of the works does not appear in any list of places open to the public.

The dots the documents do not connect

There are four facts, taken one by one. The European funding was intended for the renovation of the former covered market and the adaptation of a museum. The market was inaugurated without the museum, with the promise of calls for the premises on the upper and lower floors. In June 2026 the upper part is indicated as the seat of a post-diploma school. In the documents we have, no act explains what happened to the museum and under what title the school occupies those spaces.

We do not claim that the school has taken the place of the museum, nor that anything is irregular. A higher education school in the historic centre can be a good use of public space, and a museum can have its seat elsewhere. The question is another: a building renovated with European funds for a declared purpose now has another use, and the only thing citizens can read is a press release. The general rules of European funds provide for a period of “durability of operations” (art. 71 of Regulation (EU) 1303/2013, generally five years from the final payment): if a change of use substantially modifies the objectives of the work, the Region may ask for the grant to be repaid. Whether and how this applies here can only be said by the Region, which was present at the inauguration.

Questions to the Municipality

1. Does the licorice museum exist? Where is it, what does it contain, when does it open?
2. What part of Atri's intervention (€519,777.22 of regional grant) is meant for the museum and what for the market? What has been built of the museum?
3. Who will manage the premises and through which call? Which spaces have been assigned?
4. Why did two tenders fail, why was the contract signed in January 2023 terminated in July 2024, and how much was paid to Tecma for which works?
5. What sums have been recovered from the advance given to Tecma (€87,037.57), and with what guarantees?
6. Why did the economic framework show as “wrong” the amount already paid to Tecma, and since when?
7. Does the Rural Development Programme funding provide for restrictions on use and management? Did the Region authorise the use of the upper part for the ITS Academy? What happens if the museum does not open?
8. Under which act (agreement, loan for use, rent, call) does the ITS Academy occupy the premises of the former covered market, after calls to assign them had been announced in September 2025? Which part of the building was meant for the museum?
9. What is the fate of the original project of the Ducal Stables from 2017?
10. What happens to the collections of the Ethnographic Museum during the RIABITA works: who keeps them, who insures them, where is the inventory?

Our proposal

Transparency note: OpenCivTech promotes a project of its own for a network of accommodation providers in Atri, mentioned here because it is related. This part is a proposal, not a reconstruction.

A licorice museum does not need a large building. It needs a route: the root on the Calanchi, the ancient processing, the factory that still produces, the shop where it is sold. It tells the story of a product with almost six hundred years of documents and a living link with a producing family. It costs little if it is done with those who make licorice, with a digital archive (RIABITA provides one) and with a visit that can be booked online. And it can be networked with hospitality: a “licorice weekend” is exactly the kind of product a network of providers can sell. But it needs something that has so far been missing: a date, a person in charge and a visitor count to report.

The works, act by act

Who held which portfolios

The portfolios of Domenico Felicione, as they appear in the sources:

The portfolios of the mayor Piergiorgio Ferretti, as written on the official page of the Municipality (consulted on 20 September 2026, no appointment date): “Lavori Pubblici - Personale - Servizi Generali - Protezione civile – Viabilità – Sanità – Edilizia Scolastica – Comunicazione istituzionale” (public works, personnel, general services, civil protection, roads, health, school buildings, institutional communication).

For the other years (2008-2012, 2014-2016, 2018-2020, 2022-2024) we have not found the portfolios: the appointment decrees are among the documents we are requesting from the Municipality.

Sources

• Municipality of Atri, determinations of the Head of the Public Works Area: no. 1206 (2022), 1454, 1614 (2024), 855, 865, 897, 921 (2025); general lists of determinations for the second half of 2022 and 2023; Giunta no. 96/2021 and no. 56/2024 (cited in the acts).
• Municipality of Atri: Update note to the 2026-2028 planning document (DUP); 2025 management report (list of buildings).
• Cityrumors (10/11/2020; 20/04/2021; 2017), Il Trafiletto (2 and 15/9/2025), Giornale di Montesilvano (summer 2026), Abruzzo Speciale (2/9/2026).
• Abruzzo Region, determinations DPD023/176 and /181 (cited in the Municipality's acts).
• Method: “not found” means the data does not appear in the public documents consulted as of 20 September 2026.

Last updated: 20 September 2026. Right of reply: we publish in full the answers of the Municipality, the companies and the managers. The dossier is also available in Italian, which is the reference text.