Museo etnografico tiranese

Museum collection

The collection of the Museo Etnografico Tiranese is located since 1990 in the Casa del Penitenziere (Penitent's House), an 18th-century Palazzo nearby the Basilica Madonna di Tirano. Until then it was housed in the ground floor of the Palazzo San Michele, located as well at the square of the basilica. The collection was moved to its new location as a result of the Valtellina flood disaster of the summer of 1987. The municipality of Tirano renewed and adapted therefore the complete building. On a historical point of view the location at the Piazza della Basilica is a very strategical one because in the year of 1514 the town of Tirano was allowed to host on the Piazza an annual trade-fair which became quite important during the reign of the Three Leagues in Valtellina. This way the square of the basilica became notable for both, the religious element of the pilgrimage and the economic element of the trade-fair. Furthermore, a painting from the local painter Antonio Caimi sketches a typical but idealized day at this fair-trade in the middle of the 19th century.

The central interests of the museum-collection are objects and devices that reflect the historical peasant life in the Valtellina. Until now the Museo Etnografico Tiranese has collected more than 14.000 objects, of which a big part is exposed in the exhibition halls of the museum. The exhibition area is extended over three floor levels and a cellar room, showing a cross-section of the historic working and rural living environment of the Valtellina. On the ground level the workshop of a cartwright and cooper is arranged with traditional equipment for wood- and ironwork which were used for the construction and repair of carts and barrels. In the first floor the production of traditional textile, mainly based on natural fibres such as linen and hemp, is displayed. Next to a traditional hand loom even instruments of producing woollen fibres, such as reels, spindles and carding-machines are exposed. Another room on the first floor is referring to the nearby Sanctuary of Madonna di Tirano, the dominant religious element of the city since the beginning of the 16th century. Notable here are the vestments donated to the Basilica in 1636 by Cardinal Duke Richelieu, French clergymen and statesman at the same time. …