MET - Museo Etnografico degli Usi e Costumi della Gente di Romagna

The MET explores the everyday culture of Romagna through the objects and skills of rural life. Its collections range from household tools and caveje—the decorated iron hooks used with oxen—to objects connected with farming, fishing, crafts and popular belief.

Why it matters

The museum documents the communities of the inland Rimini area, from the Tuscan-Romagnol and Marche Apennines to the Adriatic coast. Its subject is not only work, but also the customs, rituals and beliefs woven into everyday objects.

What to notice

The collection follows life at home and in the countryside, with sections on the house, the mill, and the agricultural cycles of wheat, hemp and wine. Craft traditions include rust printing on cloth, metallurgy, violin-making and the production of piadina griddles. The museum also holds 52 puppets and marionettes from the Salici family collection, including Commedia dell’Arte and Romagna figures, as well as 328 textiles from the Salici-Stignani family, among them more than 60 complete puppet costumes.

Context and history

The MET opened in 1981, growing out of collections assembled from the 1960s by a research committee guided by museologist Giuseppe Sebesta. It was first set up in a renovated former municipal slaughterhouse dating from the 1920s, then moved to new exhibition spaces between 1987 and 1989. Its displays connect objects of daily use with the traditions, knowledge and beliefs of the people who made and used them.