Rome, 24 Feb. On the outskirts of Rome, camouflaged in a discreet building away from tourists and monuments, stands the Agostinelli Museum, a chaotic and excessive place that accumulates one of the largest collections in the world, with millions of pieces loaded stories ranging from a meteorite to the mythical Al Capone’s car.
This museum, recognized by the Italian state, is the life’s work of Domenico Agostinelli, who devoted most of his 82 years to his great passion: collecting all kinds of old gadgets.
“Objects are like a book: in the hands of an illiterate person they mean nothing, but to me they reveal the lives of other people. They are a diary of history which, when I leaf through it, filled with joy and delight,” he said. explained to EFE.
DINOSAURS AND UMBRELLAS
Among the organized mess of this house, there is literally everything: millions of buttons and stamps, thousands of umbrellas, drawings by Salvador Dalí, a dinosaur egg, a prehistoric whale jawbone, a piece of meteorite, Al Capone’s car, 18th century telescopes, esoteric gadgets. and remnants of past civilizations, are just a few of an endless list of things.
What is preserved here comes from half the world. Snippets of Italian history abound, but there are also plenty from Madrid’s Rastro market, where Agostinelli frequently traveled with a van ready to take whatever 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. .
Para Agostinelli, los cachivaches antiguos son como unos hijos a los que profesa un amor que nació dure su adolescencia, justo después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando se ganaba la vida como vendedor ambulante de imágenes religiosas haciendo trueques por los pueblos y ciudades del centro Of Italy.
“The first item they gave me was a small clay musical instrument. It was given to me by the grandson of a man who had just died and told me about his life. That’s when I started to fall in love with the stories behind the objects, more than with the objects themselves,” he recalls.
With him, a team of workers and volunteers brings to life a museum where not only historical objects accumulate, but dozens of obsolete objects are also restored daily.
MOVIE THINGS
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 support the enormous expenses it generates.
In order to preserve the heritage, the objects hidden here have been unwitting movie stars. Indeed, although visitors can make a donation, the main source of income for the place is the rental of gadgets to be used in the series and films.
Over the years, the museum has received excellent proposals to move to cities like New York or Monaco. It is also common for collectors to sign blank checks to try and buy something that is kept here.
Agostinelli never yielded to these enticing proposals, convinced of the importance of preserving the heritage of his beloved suburb of Dragona, to the south-west of the capital, where he arrived as a young man from Los Abruzzo (center- town) and where he raised his family.
A FORGOTTEN PAST
Despite his advanced age, Agostinelli moves with agility through the corridors of his life project, which is not yet finished: the 4,000 square meters of the Museum are not enough for him, so he plans to open the neighboring warehouse at public in which most of the collection is preserved, further extending the journey of this journey through time.
A dilapidated century-old clock recently recovered from a dumpster by the Agostinelli team reminds visitors of the importance of valuing the objects that we regularly come across.
“We live in absolute social and cultural decadence. For generations, objects have been passed down from father to son, but now we live in the center of a hurricane that is devastating heritage and everything that seems ancient,” he laments. -he.
Raul Martinez Mendo