SERRA DI PAMPARATO, Museum of Mountain Folk Customs and Traditions
The museum
The museum is located in Serra, a hamlet in the municipality of Pamparato, in a historic building dating back to the 18th century and owned by the municipality. After a long period of abandonment, this space has become usable again thanks to the Pro Loco and the generosity of many of the town's elderly who have donated objects and shared their memories that keep alive the history and traditions of the area. The museum has thus become a point of reference for the collection of objects and images from the past, and now houses a precious archive of photographs taken from the 1920s onwards: family portraits, people at work, memories of important moments in our history, such as school, ceremonies, the war... The exhibition develops on two floors and also houses a library and a community space for meetings and workshops.
Reconstructed spaces
The reconstructions of everyday environments are particularly impressive as they come to life before our eyes. On the entrance floor there is a bedroom displaying curious objects for warming the bed on cold mountain nights, objects for personal care and make up, a cadregon forà and nightshirts. In the kitchen there are objects and tools used to prepare ancient dishes and preserve food: a muschera, which protected from insects, an icebox and sets of dishes from the ceramic workshops of the nearby town of Mondovì. The schoolroom has been set up with the wooden desks found in the cellars of the building, a blackboard, teaching rods, games, ink, an inkwell and teaching tools from the 1920s. Visitors' attention is drawn to the little wooden tables, which were specially perforated to contain bowls for the little children's lunch, to be accompanied by the inevitable nursery rhymes. Finally, a very evocative space is the well room, located in the basement of the building: the buckets for fetching water and the tubs for washing clothes with ashes seem light years away from today’s daily comfort!
Work and resources
Through a precise subdivision by chapters and types of objects, the museum also offers an interesting insight into the cultivation and processing of the past. Ample space is dedicated to the processing of chestnuts, the primary resource of this territory, as well as to the agricultural work. Tools for peeling and treating dried chestnuts, an emina for measuring grain, a manual sieve, a comb for picking blueberries, traps for rodents and moles are on display. Further tools refer to the processing of wine and butter: there are the tools used from milking to the separation of milk from cream, stamps for butter, a press, barrels and a machinery for bottling, which had to be performed during the new moon in February. Finally, the is a precious loom, which was recently restored and narrates the steps of the weaving process. This machine was used until the 1970s and it belonged to an elderly lady from the village of Arotte who worked as a weaver of hemp fabrics when she was young.
CREDITS
Direction: Paolo Ansaldi
Post-Production: VDEA Produzioni
Translation: Europa 92
Copywrite and research: Laura Marino
FINANCING BODIES
ATL del Cuneese
THANKS TO
Luciano Nasi, Carlo Vernassa