Photos: After five years of waiting, Italy's unique Apple museum opens its doors

An Apple IIc with an LCD display, which makes the machine even more portable. The Italian museum's Apple collection includes more than 10,000 items.

A model of Disk II, a 5 ¼-inch disk drive specifically designed to work with the Apple II. The Savona museum's collection started life in 2002, when the owner of an Apple reseller decided to give away a lot of unsold stock.

An Apple II Europlus, a version of the Apple II computer that designed for the European market. The Apple museum in Savona is run by a non-profit organization, All About Apple Onlus.

An Apple III computer with its monitor. All the machines on show at the museum are in working order.

A clone of the legendary Apple Computer (Apple I) designed and built by Steve Wozniak. The collection has grown throughout the years thanks to donations from several collectors.

A Macintosh 128 K. On the back, an original 1976 Apple Inc sign. That, according to the museum curators, makes it a unique piece.

These Apple Lisa 2 (later rebranded Macintosh XL) machines are also on show at the Savona museum.

The eMate 300 running the Newton operating system isn't one of the most successful Apple products: designed for the education market, it didn't last long. The item, the curators said, was donated to the museum by a collector who obtained it after a tough bargaining session with a Texan collector.

A Macintosh IIc alongside of a Macintosh Portable (special edition). For many years the collection was hosted in the basement of a primary school in Quiliano, a small country village near Savona.

Various Apple machines stored on the shelves. In order to make sure the products on show are functioning, the museum has amassedhundreds of computers to be used as spare parts.

A couple of iBooks that are part of the Savona's Apple museum collection. The first unofficial location of the museum was the loft of a private house.

A line of Apple iMac G3 machines. Having heard about the collection, in 2005 Apple reached out to the museum's curators and later invited them to Cupertino to visit the company's headquarters.

A NeXTcube and a NeXTstation to be shown at the Apple museum in Savona. Strictly speaking these aren't Apple products, but are related since NeXT was founded by Steve Jobs after he was forced out of Apple.

The Apple museum lives thanks to the work and dedication of the members of the All About Apple Onlus, which takes care of the collection.

The area around the seaport of Savona, where the Apple museum be opened from next fall.

For more on how the museum got started, read our full story here.