Photo: LigaDue · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo del ricamo e del tessile

Museum in the town hall of Valtopina with about 400 pieces of women's fashion, underwear and trousseaux, born from the embroidery school of the Pro Loco.

Opening hoursFree admission

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About the museum

The Museo del ricamo e del tessile occupies the ground floor of the town hall of Valtopina, a building from the early twentieth century. It opened in 2007 thanks to donations received from 2000 onwards, through which items that had belonged to historic families of Foligno, Spello and Perugia were collected.

The collection comprises about four hundred pieces, organised in three sections. Women's fashion shows the simplification of clothing between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with increasing use of lace on coats, blouses and skirts. Personal underwear includes petticoats, corsets, nightdresses, stockings and handkerchiefs, as well as baby trousseaux and christening gowns made for the emerging middle class. Household linen includes the “imparaticci” (embroidery samplers on which girls practised) and bridal trousseaux with white-on-white embroidery, often with floral motifs symbolising happiness and eternal love.

The museum is linked to the embroidery school run by the Pro Loco, which gave rise to the collection and which continues to pass on this minor art in the small Umbrian towns.

Highlights

About 400 garments, items of underwear and trousseau pieces
Imparaticci, embroidery samplers of young needlewomen
White-on-white embroidery of bridal trousseaux
Baby trousseaux and christening gowns from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Permanent exhibition

Moda femminile, biancheria personale e biancheria per la casa – About four hundred pieces including clothing, trousseaux, imparaticci and white-on-white embroidery.

Founded: 2007
Visitors per year: approx. 2,500