About
In this rambling museum, everyday objects are celebrated for their beauty.
There is no tool too simple nor artifact too mundane that the Ettore Guatelli Museum could not find a place among its dizzying collections. Established by the titular elementary school teacher, Ettore Guatelli, the museum collects and artfully displays the seemingly mundane items from everyday Italian life. As Italian professions and culture progressed towards automation in the 20th century, junk stores began filling with discarded artisan’s tools and obsolete household items. Guatelli, seeing relics of his culture and recent past slipping away or heading towards a landfill, began collecting everything from scissors and cobbler’s hammers, to coffee cans and old suitcases. Believing that he would create a material chronicle of Italian life that he could use to teach later generations of children, Guatelli filled his house and surrounding farm complex with accumulated relics.
