The Castello dei Burattini (Castle of Puppets) or Giordano Ferrari Museum
was established thanks to the Giordano Ferrari collection, the most important collection related to animation theatre in Italy.
Inside the museum, which has approximately 300 cubic metres of space at its disposal, an exhibition features a considerable part of the material that was patiently collected by the Parmesan puppeteer during more than sixty years of activity.
The collection does not only contain items produced by the Ferrari family; it primarily consists of pieces from various sources, that were collected, acquired or donated by other artists.
Approximately 500 pieces are on display (puppets, marionettes, heads, stage props, photographs and posters), a small part of a much larger collection that includes, in addition to the wooden actors, scenery, scripts, works on the theatre and a paper archive that is an important testimony of the world of theatrical entertainment.
The exhibition itinerary concerning puppets is based on geographical criteria.
In the room dedicated to the puppeteers of Emilia-Romagna, an important contribution is made by the collection regarding the Campogalliani family, whose founder can be credited with the invention of the puppet Sandrone.
A part of the exhibition is reserved for foreign puppets, contemporary puppets and those produced industrially.
The marionettes, on the other hand, are not displayed according to geographical differences. Their arrangement is based exclusively on a desire to highlight the most important companies of the last three centuries.
The last room in the museum is completely dedicated to the Ferrari family: the items on display here belonged to every member of the family, with a predominant number of pieces that were sculpted by Giordano.
Two substantial contributions have been made to this already rich and precious collection. The first to arrive, in order of time, was the patrimony of Franco Cristofori, donated to the Puppet Museum of the Municipality of Parma by his wife and children in the certainty of interpreting the wishes of the late journalist, a scholar of popular culture and an important collector. It is a considerable donation, with more than one thousand pieces, including puppets, marionettes, stage props, volumes, handwritten scripts and theatre scenery. In addition, there 134 portfolios of documents, which will provide precious information for scholars.
The second is that of the Brescian engineer Amilcare Adamoli, an amateur puppeteer: the material, which was donated to us by his children, includes puppets, clothes, scripts, ‘special effects’ (such as a pipe for providing flames), backdrops and the little theatre that was built by Adamoli himself.
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