The "National Museum of the Funfair and the Folk Show" was opened by the Local Administration of Bergantino and the Province of Rovigo in April 1999. Since the beginning of the ‘90s the Province of Rovigo has put a part of the old Palazzo Strozzi at disposal for the Museum of the Funfair, in perfect agreement with the social-financial situation of Northern Polesine. This area has become in the latest decades the most important vanguard industrial reality in the field of high-tech amusement device designing and production thanks to specialized industries able to meet all the requirements of a market spread all over the world.
The Museum was thought as a unique institution in Italy: it is not only a place where memories are kept, but it is, above all, a cultural centre of research and documentation concerning the complex and diversified world of popular culture. Therefore the Museum intends to collect and divulge, organically and scientifically, the historical and anthropological documents on the Fair of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which developed, through the centuries, in "Parco dei divertimenti" (fun fair) between the XIX and the XX cen. and then in the contemporary Luna Park (amusement park): it is a world full of charm and human values, that deserves to obtain new dignity, even in the eyes of the formal culture.
In fact, there is a real cultural revolution in progress that demolishes prejudices and bias: whatever was once considered as "plebeian" and "outcast", is nowadays rediscovered and reconsidered. The sets, the plots, the scripts of travelling artists have become topics of study, research and degree theses.
In conclusion the Museum of the Folk Show of Bergantino is meant to be the expression of a new, more open culture, without watertight compartments.
The Museum conducts researches exclusively on games and shows performed on the streets and marketplaces by travelling professional groups coming from resident cultures, that are not to be identified with Roman gipsies, who are a different ethnic group with a different origin and their own culture.
This is a new Museum with its own story.
It started thanks to the cooperation of important and significant cultural institutions at the national level, such as the Academy of Concordi of Rovigo, the "National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions" of Rome, the "Historic Documental Centre" of Ferrara. They helped the town of Bergantino to start its research and collect the documents necessary to make this historical and anthropological heritage enjoyable to visitors in the halls of Palazzo Strozzi
The Municipality of Bergantino, when the Museum was being founded, appointed also a Scientific Committee formed by representatives of the cultural bodies who played a role in its setting up.
The Museum assigned the research to professional researchers, who worked and work in public and private archives, located in different Italian towns and regions.
The documents collected have been used partly to create a historical cultural path, that grows richer and richer inside the Museum, partly are to be found in publications for a wider diffusion of the documents traced. The contributions of Bergantino Administration and of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Environmental Conservation have made the researches and publications feasible.
Through a cultural path, the Museum presents the historical and anthropological aspects of the Fair and the travelling Folk Show, with their social-cultural, playing-spectacular and economic functions.
The clue of the research is the study of the ritual origins of the fair and its evolution into popular show, analyzed in its different constituents: from simple amusements offered by medieval minstrels to the Theatre of Puppets and Marionettes, from tumblers and jugglers to the birth of the circus in England, from the Commedia dell'Arte or Theatre of Masks to the Theatre of Goldoni, from magic lanterns to the movies in the travelling pavilions, from the simple swings of the pre-industrial society to the vertigo roundabout of the modern amusement parks, etc.
All these things are recounted in short for lack of large exhibition rooms, by means of iconographies (prints and original photographs, photoreproductions), wooden miniatures, artistic handmade products, finds, etc., all furnished with two kinds of texts: a simple caption containing the title and the source of the document and a didactic text long enough to introduce any themes of any single sections.
The objects that have been found up to now are not numerous, but they are precious and culturally valuable. Among them there are some original mechanical musical instruments of the end of the nineteenth century, restored and made perfectly working, a target for shooting of 1845 with a patriotic meaning, a wooden model horse of a merry-go-round of the XIX century.
This institution has been meant to be a Museum for the preservation of the objects found and the objects that will be found, but its real interests are research and diffusion of this cultural heritage. In these first years since the Museum has been opened, four books have already been published: "Gente del Viaggio – Storie di vita, immagini e macchine degli spettacoli viaggianti di Bergantino" (People of the Journey – Stories of life, pictures and machines of the travelling performances of Bergantino), "Spettacoli di piazza a Roma" (Fairground performances in Rome), "I luoghi dell'Altrove" (The places of the Elsewhere), a Museum guide-book and "Una casa sulle ruote" (A house on the wheels), a narrative work. The protagonists are two boys whose parents are travelling artists. The book tells their life and adventures in the wandering life they spent together their families.
The Museum personnel presently consists of the Curator-Director, appointed by the Mayor of Bergantino as voluntary worker refunded of expenses, of a Municipality's employee working both as Museum management co-operator and as Municipality's librarian and of Municipality's employee in charge of the accounting office.
The Museum permanently deals with archival and bibliographic research both directly by the director, and by means of outhouse researchers employed by the Local Authority of Bergantino. The objects found are used both to enrich the exhibition and the archive, and for the future publications.
Besides, the Museum deals with the promotion of its publications and the welcoming of schoolchildren and groups of visitors, in order to offer them a more and more satisfying service.
From its beginning the Museum has always been helped and supported by the Academy of Concordi of Rovigo, the "National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions" of Rome, the "Historic Documental Centre" of Ferrara. These institutions are still cooperating in the management of the Museum.
Between 2002 and 2003 the Museum of Bergantino cooperated with the Museum "Het Markiezenhof" of Bergen op Zoom (the Netherlands), with the "National Fairground Archive" of Sheffield University (Great Britain), with the Museum of Essen (Germany), with the Effecot (Belgium), to carry out the realization of a European website, in conformity with a project sponsored by the European Commission. Through pictures, films and text-books the website tells the story of the travelling fair and the amusement park in Europe, from its medieval origin to the present day, with as many international connections as possible. Visit the website at: www.allafiera.net
Besides, the Italian Association of Building Contractors invited the Museum to participate in the International Fair of Genoa, that took place on 29-30-31 January 2003, to take the historic and anthropological culture to the world of business and manufacture of amusement parks.
Its success was witnessed by the great number of visitors to our stand and by the sale of the publications, whose number exceeded the expectations. The book "Gente del Viaggio" is now sold out and has already been reprinted for the second time.
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