The Room of Wonders

This is the entrance of the Museum, the first room one walks into. The Museum's promise is apparent: it is a journey through objects and stories, through the ordinary and the wonders of the obvious.

A musical curtain, made of twine and bottle caps, divides the entrance from the staircase.

The Grand Stairway awaits us, as the sound of the curtain abates. The staircases and their walls are waiting, announcing compositions and works of creativity.

The Toy Room seemingly wants to display the most genuine expressions of playtime, from tractors made with wood, a few cans and peasant creativity all the way to plastic airplanes.

The Toy Room is one big catalogue of the simple world of childhood, of popular creativity and the art of making with “what was there”.

The Main Hall is the heart of Ettore Guatelli’s museum. A sort of synthesis of his vision of the museum and of the world. The ceiling, the compositions adorning the walls and the entire exhibition of items transform the Main Hall, as someone once said, into the “Sistine Chapel of the humble”.

In the hall the wall compositions of items flourish to their greatest potential. Ettore would describe them as integral parts of the museum narration and its relationship with the public. Their purpose, he would say, was eliciting that moment of amazement needed to make the visitor pay attention and listen.

Unlike in many other museums, Ettore Guatelli did not want to order the types of objects, but rather follow a narrative thread, where the true meaning of the museum lies not in the items themselves, but in the numerous life stories they represent.

The enormous collection of common folk's kitchens has been placed in the museum’s kitchen, as if the items and tools had answered Ettore Guatelli’s call to create an album of culinary customs and knowledge.

Even the Chopping Board, no longer in use, does not shy away from its duty, and docilely lets cutlery and small tools rest on its surface, so that they may have the visibility they deserve.

Initially, this was the Bear and Monkey Room, but it later became the Shoe Room. Inside we can catch glimpses of remnants and items belonging to “orsanti” and scimmiari”, respectively bear and monkey tamers, who would entertain the audiences of Europe’s squares with dances and acrobatics. Many of them started their journeys from the Apennines of Parma.

The art of patching in the Shoe Room. In a time where nothing was to be wasted, patching up clothes was an everyday task, but one that demanded mastery of the craft and a “know-how” focusing on salvaging and mending.

Shoes, shoe stands, tables and cobbler tools find their home in the Shoe Room, displayed on the walls in arches and motifs born from Ettore Guatelli’s imagination.

The Museum logo. Concentric circles made up of hammers, tongs and cobbler awls inspired the logo of the Ettore Guatelli Museum Foundation.