Rome (EFE) pieces loaded with history ranging from a meteorite to the car of the mythical Al Capone.
This museum, recognized by the Italian State, is the life’s work of Domenico Agostinelli, who has spent most of his 82 years dedicated to his great passion: collecting all kinds of antique gadgets.
“Objects are like a book: in the hands of an illiterate they mean nothing, but for me they reveal the lives of other people. They are a newspaper of history that when I look through it fills me with joy and delight, ”he explained to EFE.
dinosaurs and umbrella
Among the organized mess of this house there is literally everything: millions of buttons and stamps, thousands of umbrellas, Salvador Dalí drawings, a dinosaur egg, a prehistoric whale jaw, a piece of meteorite, Al Capone’s car , 18th century telescopes, esoteric gadgets and remnants of bygone civilizations, are just a few examples from an endless list of things.
What is kept here comes from half the world. Bits of Italian history abound, but there are also many that come from the Rastro market in Madrid, where Agostinelli frequently traveled with a van ready to take everything he found, as well as from Argentina and Brazil, where a collection of masks comes from. pre-columbian
“In some museums there are paintings that are worth a lot of money, here we have millions of objects that make us the museum with the largest collection in the world. It is impossible to know exactly how many we have,” he proudly told EFE.
For Agostinelli, the old knick-knacks are like children to whom he professes a love that was born during his adolescence, just after World War II, when he made his living as a peddler of religious images bartering through the towns and cities of the center from Italy.
“The first object they gave me was a small clay musical instrument. It was given to me by the grandson of a man who had just passed away and he told me about his life. It was there that I began to be passionate about the stories behind the objects, more than the objects themselves”, he recalls.
Together with him, a team of workers and volunteers keep a museum alive where not only things with history accumulate, but dozens of outdated items are also restored daily.
movie stuff
Despite the fact that the Italian State has recognized the place as a museum since 1992 and that admission is free, the Agostinelli house does not receive any type of subsidy to help sustain the enormous expenses it generates.
In order to preserve the heritage, the objects hidden here have been involuntary film stars. In fact, although visitors can leave a donation, the main source of income for the place is the rental of gadgets to be used in series and movies.
Over the years, the museum has received succulent offers to move to cities like New York or Monaco. It is also common for collectors to sign blank checks to try to buy something that is kept here.
Agostinelli has never given in to these tempting propositions, convinced of the importance of preserving the heritage in his beloved suburb of Dragona, to the southwest of the capital, the place where he arrived as a young man from Los Abruzzo (downtown) and where he formed his family.
a forgotten past
Despite his advanced age, Agostinelli moves agilely through the corridors of his life project, which has not yet come to an end: the 4,000 square meters of the Museum are not enough for him, so he plans to open the neighboring warehouse to the public in which most of the collection is preserved, further extending the journey of this journey through time.
A dilapidated century-old pendulum clock recently rescued from a dumpster by Agostinelli’s team reminds visitors of the importance of valuing the objects that everyone comes across on a regular basis.
“We live in absolute social and cultural decadence. For generations objects were handed down from father to son, but now we live in the center of a hurricane that wipes out heritage and anything that looks old, ”she laments.
