Ethnographic Museum "Once upon a time"

The experience

The “C’era una Volta” Ethnographic Museum in Alessandria is located inside the “Gambarina Vecchia”, a barracks dating back to the eighteenth century.

The exhibition area occupies 1600 square meters and is divided into two floors: On the ground floor On the ground floor, an evocative path is outlined that reproduces the main moments of public and private life in peasant society at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The different “Windows on the Past” reproduce the moment of birth, games, school, kitchen, bedroom, trousseau room and the wedding event. A particular section is dedicated to the two World Wars with objects, weapons and furnishings coming largely from the 1915-1918 war. The exhibition is enriched by showcases containing collections of objects related to the scene in front. The section dedicated to the works offers tools and furnishings belonging to the various craft workshops (cobbler, blacksmith, carpenter) and the various stages of agricultural production.

On the first floor On the upper floor it is possible to admire the layout of a school classroom from the thirties and the library containing books dating back to the early nineteenth century. The ethnographic sector is completed by a vast collection of dolls and toys from various eras and showcases that exhibit aspects of Alexandria as a productive city over a century.

In their workshops, the artisans (carpenters, blacksmiths, farriers) prepare and repair their work tools, through the path with a guide, called “The world of work” the trades of the past, typical of the Alessandrian territory and increasingly distant from today’s world, will be evoked: rediscovering the past is better understanding how your ancestors lived in Italy.