Museo del Burattino

On the top floor of Bergamo's Provincial Palace, the Museo del Burattino documents the city's glove-puppet theatre, including Gioppino, a Bergamasco comic character performed in dialect. Opened in 2019 by the Fondazione Benedetto Ravasio, it displays around 120 historic wooden puppet heads alongside props from five private collections.

Why it matters

Gioppino, characterised by his moustache, large nose and Bergamasco dialect, is a distinctive figure in the region's glove-puppet theatre. This museum is the institution that keeps that memory alive, built around the legacy of the puppeteer Benedetto Ravasio, whose foundation has worked since 1993 to keep the repertoire and craft in circulation. The collection documents a strand of Bergamo's popular culture alongside its architectural heritage.

What to notice

The display centres on roughly 120 wooden puppet heads from historic Bergamasco production, showing the carved and painted faces of stock characters and the work of their makers. The display also includes artefacts from the Angelini, Cortesi, Losa, Milesi and Scuri collections and the Ravasio fund, including costumes, props and documentation of travelling booths. A catalogue with critical texts and illustrations was published in 2020. The foundation has extended this tradition through school programmes, conferences, training and festivals, including "Borghi e Burattini" and the youth festival "Gioppino e i suoi fratelli", organised with partner associations and UNIMA.

Context and history

The museum opened on 5 July 2019 in the spazio Viterbi on the top floor of Palazzo della Provincia, at via Torquato Tasso, in the lower town near the Sentierone. Its promoter, the Fondazione Benedetto Ravasio, had spent the previous quarter-century safeguarding the memory and vision of the great Bergamasco puppeteer after whom it is named. The foundation's festivals, organised with partner associations and UNIMA, connect contemporary figure theatre with the historical Lombard repertoire.