Dolls made of cloth, celluloid, or porcelain, static or mechanical, a soccer game from the thirties, lead soldiers and other materials, a papier-mâché doll from the late nineteenth century, toy cars and ship models, notebooks and newspapers, rocking horses, the spectacular “dollhouses,” testify to the pastimes of children up to the middle of the last century. A snapshot of culture, art, technology, and fashion in the lives of children from a time long gone.
From the beginning, it exhibits about 180 pieces (all owned by the IOCO Association, which manages the museum). Over time, the collection has been enriched with several dozen pieces, the result of donations from private individuals, and the number of exhibited pieces is continuously increasing. A large quantity of antique toys, tracing the historical evolution of toys over the last 150 years, almost as if to accompany the history of Italy’s unification itself. We find ourselves facing objects used by our grandparents, play materials perhaps now outdated, but which retain all the charm and poetry of play.
The toys, varied in composition and origin and belonging to a period between the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, now number hundreds of specimens that document the pastimes and games of children from a time long gone. The most delicate are kept inside special display cases.
