Craft Museums
Gignese: The Umbrella and Parasol Museum
One of the most interesting craft museums is the Umbrella and Parasol Museum. It is the only one in the world devoted to umbrellas and parasols. Its collection comprises over a thousand examples of umbrellas, parasols and handles. Some items are curiosities, or of considerable historical and cultural importance, like the umbrellas that belonged to Queen Margherita of Savoy or the Risorgimento patriot and politician Giuseppe Mazzini.
The showcases display finely made and exquisitely decorated umbrellas, which visitors will find intriguing and ravishingly pretty. The section devoted to the life of the umbrella-makers includes photographs of pioneer craftsmen, rudimentary tools from workshops of the past, and the tools that the umbrella makers/menders used when they plied their trade in the streets of Italy and throughout the world.
This craft Museum takes us on a journey through a corner of history, full of images and memorabilia of an ancient trade that the local umbrella makers took successfully all over the world.
Open from April to September
Santa Cristina - Borgomanero: Ethnographic Museum
The ethnographic museum in Santa Cristina – Borgomanero aims to protect and show many objects collected by local enthusiasts.
The collection is organized in a wide corridor and five rooms where there is a reconstruction of the typical rural setting.
In the kitchen and in the bedroom are, together with the furniture, also clothes and furnishings from last century.
We can admire vintage photos and work tools, from farming to the many different activities.
We can also visit a cellar in which we can learn the different phases of vinification through panels and explanations by friendly guides who are there just for passion and love for their area.
Open: first Sunday of the month
Sesto Calende: The Archaeological Museum
The museum houses one of the most important collections of finds and craft works from the Golasecca culture, a population of Celtic origin.
Through the communication route represented by the Ticino River and Lake Maggiore, it will come into contact with the Mediterranean world, and the Etruscan world in particular.
From the most ancient period, there are some functional and decorative objects coming from some burials of people huddled in natural caves.
The museum’s scenographic highlight and extraordinary example of a high-ranking burial is offered by the tomb of the Tripode (late 6th century BC) which contained the ashes of a woman and a rich grave goods consisting of various ornaments.
Certainly a very important find in the collection is the neck of the glass which bears two inscriptions, rare evidence of an Italic alphabet deriving from the Etruscan one and defined as the “Lugano alphabet”.
After visiting the museum you can take a pleasant walk along the Ticino River, a beautiful protected green oasis.
San Maurizio d'Opaglio: The Tap Museum
Among the craft museums, is also the Tap Museum. With its unique exhibits, it traces the history of San Maurizio d’Opaglio and surrounding district, famous for and specialized in the manufacture of taps and valves but. It also displays the many themes relating to the purifying of water and the use of water sources which the technology of the tap has always had to face.
The Museum chronicles the social history of water and the innovations which allowed to dominate it, transforming the cure of the body from an élite practice into a mass phenomenon.
Reconstructing the history of the tap and fittings industry in the Novara area means reconstructing the social and industrial history of Italy in the post-unification era.
Armeno: Museum of Hospitality
This museum has a unique collection of memoirs, fragments of life, testimonies, preserved over the years by hoteliers, waiters and cooks around the world, kept as evidence of their activities.
Armeno is famous for being the home of the hoteliers. A historical legend tells that this town learnt the art of “managing of the house” and “table serving” the Lombard nobles who, in order to escape the plague that broke out in the 17th century, moved to Armeno.
In this craft museum you can see items of work such as, kitchen tools, photographs, collections of vintage newspapers, menus of famous meetings, books and rare books of recipes along with many other documents that make this place an authentic jewel of originality and suggestiveness.
Open: July and August