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Usually when we hear about a trip to Italy, at first we think of Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Tuscany, sunny beaches and ancient monuments. But once we're saturated with all these charming places besieged by thousands of tourists, we'll want to relax for a while in relative solitude, or to provide attractions for the children travelling with us. Of course, there are thousands of such places in Italy, and today I would like to introduce the little-known private museum Piana delle Orme located about 80 kilometers from Rome, near Latina.
The museum was established on the initiative of Mariano De Pasquale in 1997 and was located in about 15 pavilions, formerly used as a poultry farm. In each of the pavilions there is a separate exhibition, you will find toys from past years, tools and objects of everyday use used by the inhabitants of this agricultural region at the beginning of the 20th century, there are also many agricultural machines and equipment, as well as mock-ups depicting scenes from everyday life such as harvesting, hay, wine making etc. As many as two pavilions are dedicated to Benito Mussolini's great project for the reclamation of the Pontic Fields, which took place in the 1920s, and which has resulted in the drainage of 775 square kilometres. These areas were covered with painted marshes until the 20th century.
Toys from past years
The collection of toys in Piana delle Orme is divided thematically, i.e. dolls, plush toys, cars, ships, robots, as well as police, firefighter or military vehicles. There is a really huge number of different toys from the end of the 19th century until the museum was established. Many of the manufacturers doesn't exist any more, so that makes this collection more interesting. From a child's point of view, it's a shame that you can't play with these toys.
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Pontine Marshes reclamation
In two pavilions there are scenes from reclamation works, huge ploughs used to create channels. Among the suggestive scenery you can see with your own eyes the enormity and weight of the work done in the 1920s to dry up the pontic marshes and create hundreds of canals and a water system crossing the area.
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Historic agricultural vehicles
The collection of agricultural vehicles comprises more than 300 units, from the first steam locomotives to tractors with oil engines. Dozens of tractors and tools were presented at the exhibition, which represented the most important stages of agricultural mechanization. Harrows, seeders, balers, forage harvesters, threshing machines, etc.
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Daily life in the Fields
In the successive pavilions we go back about 120 years into the past to see the everyday life of an Italian village at the end of the 19th century. The mock-ups and scenes show the production processes of food, making bread, cheese, oil and wine, burning charcoal, and threshing grain. The restored colourful carts and their inlays delight with their beauty and attention to detail. We pass through the blacksmith's forge and the hairdressing salon where the work of qualified craftsmen is shown.
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Next week I will continue my visit to the Piana delle Orme museum, this time I will take you to the second part of the museum dedicated to the military and the Italian campaign of World War II.
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