Museo degli attrezzi agricoli

The Museum of Agricultural Tools in Canale di Tenno preserves implements gathered from local homes. Its collection includes the back-baskets, dairy equipment and woodworking tools that supported life and work in the mountain villages around Lake Tenno.

Why it matters

The collection documents a local working culture through objects once used in farms and households. Its agricultural tools connect the terraced landscape and small mountain settlements with the labour that shaped them.

What to notice

• The tall back-baskets known as gerle, used to carry hay and foliage on steep ground.
• Ploughs and grain-processing implements, including the molinel.
• The dairy tools: cercene, butter stamps, smarzarole and the wooden zangola churn.
• The carpenter’s bench, cooper’s tools and objects associated with the cellar.

Context and history

The museum is housed within Canale’s medieval borgo, whose vaulted passages, barns and balconies preserve a rural setting. Its implements were collected from local homes, tying the displays to the community’s own agricultural history. The collection also records the practice of filo: winter gatherings in the stable, where neighbours worked and talked near the animals.