The Didactic Historical Museum of Tapestry of Bologna is much more than just a place of gathering and collecting of textile remains: in fact, with pedagogical intent,it wants to treat the textile exhibit not so much for its aesthetic value, but as a source of knowledge of the past and the heritage represented by the Italian craft tradition.
The birth of this museum has a very special story that has its roots in German prison camps: here, in fact, the cavalier Vittorio Zironi, a master upholsterer and future founder of the museum, took the decision to create a museum dedicated to Bologna's upholstery. And in 1946, on his return to Bologna, he began collecting relics until 1966, when the collection was first made accessible to the public in the building Salina Brazzetti until the moving in 1990,to the present location in Villa Spada, where is still housed.
Vittorio Zironi initially decided to concentrate only in the collection of fabrics for upholstery and all that was connected, then equipment and chassis, including a large frame of 1700 Lombard transformed in 1801 into the jacquard system. Later on he decided to expand the collection even to fabrics for clothing products, garments and clothing for the liturgical celebrations.
Today the museum contains more than six thousand pieces drawn from the history of Italian textile manufacturing, but also foreign and Eastern Europe dating from the XIV-XIX: damask, brocade, velvet, cloth flag, taffeta, liseré. To protect the fabric of the collection, always in the Museum, on the fourth floor of the villa was placed a conservation laboratory for tissue.
Recommended for professionals in the field.
Closed Mondays.