The Rapparini Collection

The Rapparini Family Carpenter's Workshop was inaugurated on 26th September 2015 during the annual event “La notte dei Musei”. A room at number 37 in Via Garibaldi houses a permanent collection, donated by Nadia in memory of her father Adriano Rapparini. This project was generated a few years ago by a profound attachment on the part of Nadia to the story of her family and its historical importance for the community as a whole. An initial idea quickly took form and developed along different lines. The Rapparini family artisan story, which covers more than 150 years, also gives us an idea of the changes which were taking place in Budrio and at the same time were a reflection of the evolution of society at that time in Italy. Set squares, planes, marking guages, curved markers, large hammers, files, chisels. brushes, saws, clamps and many other items; all needed to make cartwheels, vats and barrels, doors and windows and even winches to lift religious statues. The whole universe rotated around this large workbench in the Rapparini carpenter's workshop in “La Motta” in Vedrana near Budrio. Today, this artisan world, which was for over a century strictly related to the countryside, its economy and the life of its people, can be rediscovered in a room in the centre of Budrio. The workshop, handed down from generation to generation by the Rapparini family to Otterino, the last in a long line of carpenters, no longer exists. That artisan world of farmers and countrymen, which were dependant on the carpenter's craftsmanship, has been overtaken by mecchanisation and industrial development. Wheels are no longer made of wood, nor the barrels or vats for wine. Nowadays they are made of steel. Society has progressed and the tools used by the Rapparini family are evidence of a simple life bound to nature, to the employment of antique techniques and the use of natural materials, no longer available or discarded for more modern ones. The displays on show, dedicated to this family of carpenters inside the courtyard of “Palazzo Buriani Della Noce” along the museum street, reinforce the already rich and fascinating historical and artistic collections present in the town. The inclusion of this new nucleus of material to the museums in via Garibaldi and the towers housing the history of the cultivation of hemp and the local history of the “Risorgimento”, adds a further insight into the history of an ancient and traditional craft.

Open every Sunday afternoon from 3.30pm to 6.30pm
The first Sunday of the month also from 10.30 to 12.30