The Francesco Baracca Museum offers a public service and, as such, it orries out activities useful for the widest dissemination of the knowledge acquired, with particular reference to the historical-military, artistic and cultural heritage in its collections. A repository of a collection that documents a historical and technical heritage centred on the figure of Baracca and on aviation, especially in the context of the First World War, the Museum also acts as a place of education and dissemination of historical, technical and scientific culture to citizens and schools, interpreting and boosting Lugo’s traditional vocation as a town with a consolidated technical-scientific tradition.

The Museum also wants to be a space that tends to promote active citizenship, intercultural dialogue and lifelong learning activities, based on the guidelines set out by the European Union, in particular the Cologne Charter of 1999 and the Lisbon Protocol of 2000, which, by developing the concept of a knowledge-based society, help to identify museums as ideal places for learning and socialising.

The Baracca Museum is an institution committed to the preservation and acquisition of materials and memorabilia, aimed at documenting and enhancing the following areas in particular:

• The figure of Francesco Baracca, Italian Air Force Ace and Hero of the Great War, in its many aspects.

• The relationship between Baracca and his Lugo military contemporaries who particularly distinguished themselves in the years of the conflict or in those immediately preceding it.

• The relationship between the myth of Baracca and the development of aviation in Romagna.

• The connection between Baracca and the aviation of the countries involved in the First World War, from the pioneering years to the formation and persistence of the myth of the Romagna ace.

• The historical and social context in which life and enterprises of the Ace of Aces are set.

In carrying out its tasks, the Baracca Museum ensures the conservation, organisation, exhibition, study and public enjoyment of its collections through various and specific activities. In particular, the Baracca Museum:

• It guarantees the inalienability of the collections and the individual works that comprise them.

• It promotes the increase of its assets through donations of goods of real interest, bequests, deposits and purchases consistent with its aims and the type of its collections.

• It preserves the integrity of its assets (both on display and in storage) through conservation, maintenance and restoration, in agreement with the competent bodies.

• It takes care of the inventory and cataloguing of assets, as well as their photographic documentation.

• It ensures an adequate display and contextualisation of the possessed assets through permanent exhibition itineraries equipped with the necessary didactic apparatus, possibly also with the support of information and multimedia technologies.

• It guarantees the enjoyment of goods that are not permanently on display through the rotation of works and by ensuring access, upon request, to the Museum’s storerooms. It develops study, research, documentation and information relating to its collections.

• It organises temporary exhibitions, meetings, conferences, educational activities and training and refresher courses relevant to the Museum’s aims, also outside its premises.

• He edited the production of catalogues for exhibitions, scientific and popular publications.

It participates in initiatives, promoted by other public and private entities, through the exchange of expertise and, possibly, through the loan of its works.

• It allows the public access, for study purposes, to the repositories, the specialised library and the photo library stored at the Trisi Library.

• It promotes the valorisation of its heritage.

Within the scope of its functions and competences, the Baracca Museum:

• It establishes cooperation with schools of all levels in the area.

• It joins the Sistema Museale della Provincia di Ravenna (Museum System of the Province of Ravenna) in order to promote and enhance its cultural offer according to a territorial system logic. It adheres, in the manner provided for by the regulations, to shared promotion formulas and associated management of services and functions with other museums within the Union of Municipalities of Bassa Romagna.

• It promotes a thematic museum network (Aeronautics; Great War in the areas where Baracca was active; Ducati and Ferrari companies) that, by making the museum a key to establish relations in the broader interest of the city of Lugo and its territory, develops the full potential of its “brand” made famous throughout the world by Ferrari’s Prancing Horse.

• It enters into agreements with voluntary associations that carry out activities for the protection and enjoyment of cultural heritage, for a better promotion and knowledge of the cultural heritage it possesses.