Museo d’Arte Tipografica Portoghese

About the museum

The Museo d’Arte Tipografica Portoghese in Altamura is dedicated to the history of printing and houses old machines used in the 19th and 20th centuries, largely from the historic Tipografia Portoghese. The print shop was founded in 1891 by the brothers Gaetano and Francesco Portoghese and from 1893 was housed in rooms of the convent of Sant’Antonio, formerly the seat of the Scuola Speciale di Agricoltura (special agricultural school) and the Simone-Viti-Maino orphanage; later run by Filippo and Nicola Portoghese, it ceased activity in 2000.

The museum was founded in February 2010 together with the association of the same name, with the aim of enhancing the heritage kept by the print shop. Besides the machines, it holds clichés (the printing matrices) and historic posters and leaflets on various subjects, from politics, with coats of arms and stamps, to labels for food products.

In December 2019 one of the museum's machines, an “Albert automatica” from the 1950s, was used to print in a fine edition the manuscript “La leggenda del tradimento” by the local historian Vincenzo Vicenti.

Highlights

• 19th- and 20th-century printing presses from the Tipografia Portoghese
• Clichés, historic posters and leaflets
• Labels for food products, political coats of arms and stamps
• 1950s “Albert automatica” press, used in 2019 for a fine print run

Founded

2010

Operated by

Associazione Museo d’Arte Tipografica Portoghese

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