The Museum of Joe Petrosino in Padula, is hosted in the house, where Joe was born and grew up in the beginning of the 20th century, before he and his family emigrated to New York. Joe Petrosino is a hero both in the USA and Italy. Celebrated by movies, press, and myths, Joe was the man, who institutionalized the fighting against the Mafia as Head of the Police in New York. Joe Petrosino (1860-1909) was born in Padula, a small town in southern Italy, from where he leaves for New York with his family at age of 13. He enters the New York City police force and in 1895 he was promoted to detective. Criminals in Little Italy are now facing an enemy, who speaks their language, knows their methods, and can enter into their milieu. In 1905, Petrosino, who obtained the rank of lieutenant, organizes a team of Italian policemen, the ‘Italian Branch’, through which he identifies criminal connections between the Black Hand (an extortion racket) and the Sicilian Mafia. Following this track, he arrives in Italy in 1909, to stay for 48 hours in Padula, before going to Palermo, where he was assassinated on March the 12th , 1909. 

The building was renovated in 2015-2016 to host the Museum. On the first floor visitors familiarize with the personal objects and furnishings that belonged to Joe Petrosino and his family. Here are exhibited the materials related to the cult of the character (photos, prints, comic books, works of art). In the last two floors a sophisticated interactive space is offering a unique multi-sensory experience to the audience. Significant audiovisual documents from the RAI archives have been digitized and reorganized with a dual purpose: a) the popular dissemination of a significant shift of the Modernity through a new digital heritage artwork and b) scientific research. In the first case, visitors can explore the history of Mafia and Anti-mafia through audiovisual narratives (multivisions) activated by touch screens. In the second case scholars can access the Digital Library to study the audiovisual repository of the Italian Broadcast Corporation (RAI).