Don Giorgio Franchini was born on the 2nd November 1894 in Rimini (picture 1) in the parish of San Lorenzo in Carreggiano. His father was Giuseppe and his mother Rosa Montanari.
He became parish in the Pieve de Compito in 1926 and remained there till 1978. In more than 50 years he worked hard in order to preserve memories of the past.
He used to say: “ My love for ancient things has guided me in the archaeological researches in my free time from my priestly office. I wanted to collect ancient materials so that they would not get lost. I collected them in a small museum protected by the Sopraintendenza delle antichità di Bologna.”
It was probably not the case but his destiny, that Don Franchini, who loved so much archaeology, became the priest of  the Compito.
Starting from 1930, for decades, Don Franchini informed Spraintendenza alle Antichità about every single fragment found, personally cured and photographed each find and sent the Sopraintendenza all important data, useful for future studies. Though he was not an archaeologist, Don Franchini always tried to document all his finds . For cataloguing the coins he used a little balance and a publication by Gnecchi. He created a catalogue of the finds , which is not always correct, but very important in order to know the object present in the museum before the robbery of 1978. He also wrote the first guide to the Museum in three languages: Italian, French and German, which is still exposed in the Museum.
The memory of Don Franchini is still loved very much by his old parishioners, who used to help him when they were children, collecting ancient objects found when fields were ploughed. He used to thank them with chocolates and candy. After 50 years of great activity he was forced to leave his church and his museum because he was very ill. In the same period his collection underwent a big theft and was closed to the public until 1998.
The great love for ancient finds by Giorgio Franchini gave birth to the Museum Il Compito. That is why on 3rd December 1999 the museum was named after him.

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