SHARRYLAND
Museum of Precinema, Padua
All the wonder of cinema before cinema
Where is
What it is and where it is
In the heart of Padua, the cozy attic of the prestigious Palazzo Angeli houses the Museum of Precinema, a private collection of optical toys, instruments and projection glass that restores to the visitor the awe proper to the earliest forms of vision spectacle. In well-organized rooms, the display of singular devices such as thaumatropes, zootropes and magic lanterns stretches out and traces the path taken by the image that eventually became cinematic from fixed and moving.
Why it is special
Telling the story of cinema before cinema has all the excitement of a journey back in time when missives were sealed with sealing wax, music was played by gramophones, and entertainment had much to do with imagination, ingenuity, and wonder. The Museum of Precinema, unique in Italy, offers an enjoyable opportunity to understand the origins of visual language up close.
Not to be missed
First optical illusions and then cinema are made of amazement and emotion, which is why it is really difficult in this museum to find one object more captivating than the others, a more exciting section, an unforgettable detail. The Venetian New World, the magic lanterns, the stereoscopes... there is no solution; wonder is ready to greet the eyes wherever they rest.
A bit of history
In the attic of a beautiful Venetian house, Laura Minici Zotti found a magic lantern and a collection of stained glass from the 1800s, put a glass in the lantern and projected it. Such was the beauty of the moment that it led to an unusual career as a lantern maker and collector first, and to the creation of a museum in 1998 in collaboration with the City of Padua, which made available Palazzo Angeli, in Prato della Valle, as the home of the Minici Zotti collection, to allow citizens and the world to retrace the story of ingenuity, wonder and magic that led to the cinema we know today.
Curiosities
Inside the museum, the various rooms are indicated by special signs whose style is reminiscent of that of nizioleti, the typical street signs of Venice. Who knows, it was probably a choice dictated by the desire to maintain a connection with the city from which it all began in an attic, perhaps the place in a house that, with its lights and shadows, comes closest to the delicate border between reality and magic.
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Enter the Map of Italy's Undiscovered Wonders and find treasures where you least expect it... Inspire, Recommend, Share...
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