Housed inside the Complesso Museale di San Francesco, this museum traces the history of olive cultivation in the Valle Umbra — which has been going on here for at least two thousand years. The exhibits cover the full cycle from grove to press to lamp: Roman-era pressing equipment, the carved wooden tools of the 17th century, and the chemistry of extra-virgin oil production.
The display on the cultural significance of the olive in Umbrian life is unexpectedly absorbing — from its role in religious iconography (every church needed oil for its lamps) to the economic arrangements that bound tenant farmers to their landlords through share-cropping of the groves. Trevi's oil, pressed from the Moraiolo, Frantoio, and Leccino cultivars, is sold at the museum shop at prices you won't find in tourist shops.