The Textile Collection of “Tela Umbra” is located in Città di Castello on the second floor of Palazzo Tommasini on Via Sant’Antonio in the historic center of the city.
The exhibition unfolds in 9 rooms and reconstructs the history of the “Tela Umbra” company founded by Alice Hallgarten and Leopoldo Franchetti in 1908. Special emphasis is given to the figure of Baroness Franchetti, a friend of Maria Montessori, who created a small school within her workshops where, while their mothers worked, children could study using the Montessori teaching method. Old school desks and teaching tools recreate the extraordinary combination of the Montessori method and Alice Hallgarten’s intense social commitment. The museum, aimed at protecting and promoting textile art within the socio-cultural reality of the area, exhibits textile creations, yarns, vintage looms, lace, and various weaving tools as well as samples of all the fabrics produced in the workshop. The museum itinerary includes a visit to the Textile Collection and the Weaving Laboratory, where all stages of fabric production are still done by hand today.
The New Yorker Alice Hallgarten is known not only for the Tela Umbra Laboratory but also for founding, in 1901, the schools of Villa Montesca and Rovigliano, both freely open to the children of peasants up to the sixth grade. The purpose was to provide education to peasants through practical lessons useful in everyday life.
Information about the Textile Collection of Tela Umbra
Via Sant’Antonio, 3
06012 Città di Castello (Perugia)
0758559071
telaumbra@aruba.it
Source: MIBACT
