MAS means National Museum of Diving Activities. It was founded in Marina di Ravenna, Italy in November 1998, 4 years after the Historical Diving Society Italy was born, which seriously wanted it. In 2014, it was enriched of a new headquarter in the city center, open in a small square that frames its façade with three yellow sentinels. They are old devices with a quite disturbing aspect, used for very deep dives, a bathysphere, a tower and a hyperbaric bell.
Set up on specific themes, this museum, managed by Vincenzo Cardella, dedicates a large space to the Military Navy, where you are welcomed by a huge articulated white atmospheric diving suit and by the perfect reproduction, in large scale of a "pig", the famous manned torpedo submarine used by the Navy special forces called “frogmen” to mine the enemy ships. Further you enter in the corner of professional diving, with two diorama which reproduce the environment of the old professional and modern divers. A short hallway is adorned by a series of collection speargun. Right after, a room of thematic exhibitions host some rare regulators and incredible underwater video recorder housing while, regulators of diverse types, instruments and other housings fill several showcases all along the way of your visit, stud with commercial helmets and pumps. In the room next to the entrance, an exclusive of Mas is the original cast of the Abyss Christ, the famous bronze statue laid down in 1954 in the sea bottom of San Fruttuoso, Italy casually discovered in a foundry by HDSI President Faustolo Rambelli.
The administrative office and a large library complete this structure, unique in Italy.
The museum can be visited by appointment, by calling +39 338 7265650.
Pictures in the next pages.