It is among the oldest Italian museums in the field of material culture. Its origins date back to the United Romagnole Exhibitions held in Forlì in 1921. On that occasion, Aldo Spallicci, Emilio Rosetti, and Benedetto Pergoli created the Romagnolo Ethnographic Exhibition, which effectively constituted the first core of the museum, officially inaugurated in April 1922 inside Palazzo Merenda. Initially focused on traditional craft sectors (from cabinetmaking to ceramics to printed fabrics) and old trades, after the war the museum significantly expanded with an increasing presence of tools and objects linked to rural customs and work. In 1964, a new museum section opened inside Palazzo Gaddi featuring large agricultural machines and tools. Following the start of restoration work in the Palace, since 2004 the materials related to farming work have been stored in a museum depot.The museum is divided into two large exhibition sectors. The first develops inside Palazzo Merenda and includes substantial collections of furniture, ceramics, and various utensils with reconstructions of the domestic environments of the typical farmhouse and the city house. Traditional workshops then follow, those of the rust-printed fabric printer, the potter, the blacksmith, the luthier, the cobbler, the hatter, and finally the characteristic Romagnolo tavern. Among the furnishings is the interesting series of paintings by the Cesena artist Giordano Severi, dedicated to the Fortresses and castles of Romagna (1928-30). In Palazzo Gaddi, besides the machines and tools connected to the various work cycles in the Romagna countryside, reconstructions of other artisan workshops are offered: the barber, the grocer, the candy maker, the tobacconist, the ropemaker, the saddler, the farrier, the frame maker, the carpenter. A section is dedicated to maritime activities in Romagna, with models of boats and reproductions of the sails of the fishing fleet, and to the salt pans of Cervia.
Information about Romagnolo Ethnographic Museum “Benedetto Pergoli”
Corso della Repubblica, 72,
47121 Forlì (Forlì-Cesena)
0543712606
servizio.pinacoteca.musei@comune.forli.fo.it
https://www.comune.forli.fo.it/cultura
Source: MIBACT
