“One upon a time” Museum

In 2002 the members of the Association “Riofreddo Insieme ODV” placed their headquarters and located the “Once upon a time” Museum in an unused school building, in order to remember the local culture and history. In fact in many mountain villages is sadly usual to find abandoned buildings still in good condition.

In the large atrium are exposed prints and portraits on the walls, a sitting room, the archive and two large and bright rooms dedicated to the “Once upon a time” Museum.

Walking through the Museum, the visitor can piece together, as in a mosaic, the history of the ancient village. Observing the objects and their arrangement, it is immersed in the evocative environments of an ancient world lived in a dignified poverty, made of hard but creative work, faith and suffering, but also full of warmth for affections and small daily joys.

In the first of the two rooms of the Museum some environments were reconstructed, where various aspects of the daily life of the past, have been represented. Here are exposed a bedroom consisting of solid furniture, a kitchen, the tools of housework and various devices for measuring time. Everyday life can also be seen in the presence of nostalgic old radios and fascinating vintage gramophones, the only instruments of information and entertainment in leisure time.

The second room is dedicated to the workmanship and shows the different and various size instruments of the crafts practiced in the village in the past. Here are shown to the visitor numerous series of tools used daily by craftsmen such as the lumberjack, the carpenter, the shoemaker, the tailor, the barber and the spinner. There is also a rudimentary electrical equipment dating back to the early attempts following the candles and oil lamps era. The Museum is also enriched by instruments used in the most arduous works, such as in ironworks, mines or coal production. You can even see a huge thresher, an indispensable machine for the peasant economy of the valley. In a corner of the room was set up a glimpse of a typical wine cellar of gone times, as well.

Peasant civilization is a life project, a harmonious even if tiring coexistence with creation. We should keep this concept in mind but, nowadays, we are convinced that the superfluous is a real necessity. We have too often a passive attitude and absence of initiative because we feel reassured by the fact that we already have everything we need, so we lack the will to risks in changing something.

The small museum of Riofreddo reminds us that in the peasant civilization man was not passive but watched and acted. He knew how to accept challenges with nature, which, as a mother and providence, called him to the trials of survival.

In this context the values of the peasant and mountaineer were faith, solidarity, thrift, self-respect, toward others and for the environment.

“Silence kept company, night kept company. After the rosary, recited in chorus, they went to the toilet in the open farmyard, then they all retired to rest with the emotions of a snowfall or a starry night in their eyes”.