Ethnographic Museum of Musical Instruments "Gaspare Cannone"

History

With the deliberation n° 116 of 23 November 2012, the Town Council of Alcamo, approved the steering motion, with the Councillor professor Antonio Fundarò as the first signatory and proposer, named "Institution Museum of Music Fausto Cannone".

On 23 January 2014 the Municipal Administration approved the deliberation relating to the foundation of the "Museum of the Multiethnic Musical Instruments", later inaugurated in July of the same year.

Initially the museum was set in two rooms of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alcamo inside the Ex Collegio dei Gesuiti, in Piazza Ciullo, at last, in June 2018 the museum has its final seat in the premises of the ex church San Giacomo della Spada.

The museum was born thanks to the perseverance of Fausto Cannone (a teacher, poet and singer-songwriter): thanks to his generous donation, they could realize in Alcamo the first ethnical musical Museum existing in Sicily.

On 25 May 2021, the Municipal Administration has assigned the delivery of works relating to the project of extraordinary maintenance of the ex church San Giacomo della Spada, which foresees the correct conservation of the collection of the instruments belonged to Maestro Fausto Cannone.

The project has been financed by GAL Gulf di Castellammare, PSR Sicilia 2014–2020.

At last the museum is going to have the suitable setting for the touristic-cultural fruition and the performing of recreational activities for citizens and visitors; in this way, they are going to resume the old ideal of the historical hospice inside this church, representing a place and an obligatory point of passage for the pilgrims who wanted to reach Santiago de Compostela.

The museum was opened thanks to Fausto Cannone's perseverance and desire of this artist to leave a sign of love to his town:

Cannone, who died last September, went round the world for 30 years: he got the most strange and original musical instruments, string and wind ones, which are all working and bought in their original countries. At last, this exceptional patrimony, maybe unique in its genre, has its final seat. …