| |
Antonino Uccello, more a poet than an anthropologist,
founded the Museum-House which collects and preserves
valuable historical pieces of popular Sicilian culture
At just twenty, Uccello moved to Brianza and it was probably
there, far from his homeland, that he became most aware of
his roots. At thirty, along with literary work, he started
to collect items, spoken tradi tions, work tools and
artefacts from the rural culture which was disappearing at
that time, overwhelmed by new cultural role models.
Antonino Uccello, more a poet than an anthropologist,
founded the Museum-House which collects and preserves
valuable historical pieces of popular Sicilian culture.
Once again back in Sicily, Uccello feels a strong need to
find a home where he can systematically organi se everything
he has collected such as valuable paintings on glass, small
statues for cribs, small wax statues preserved in valuable
shrines and postcards from puppet shows. He therefore buys
a town house in via Machiavelli, of noble seventeenth
century severity and home to the Ferla-Bonell:
"in an inhabited
area which has stayed almost homogenous in its primitive
town layout"
(A. UCCELLO).
Uccello, in his Museum-House, with the help of the
object-memento and by organising exhibitions linked to
seasonal cycles, knew how to bring back to life a feeling of
the past.
"A small,
courageous epic, when he and his loving companion managed to
make his fantastical dream come true, recovering the order
and rhythm of the double use of an old rural house: casa ri
stari (the house where one lives and rests) and Casa ri
massaria (the house where one works and farms)"
(CARLO
MUSCETIA).
"An
Ethnographic Museum could contribute considerably to
preserving at least part of the study material, educating
the public and making them aware, not to mention the
In 1971,
Uccello inaugurated and opened a "live" Museum to the
public. In 1983, after his death, the Museum was bought over
by the Sicilian Regional Council |
|
