Museo delle Marionette

The story

The Museo internazionale delle marionette was founded in 1975 by Antonio Pasqualino, a surgeon and anthropologist, and his wife Janne Vibaek, to save the Opera dei pupi at a time when the traditional theatres were closing down. It stands in the Kalsa, in the small square that now bears the founder’s name.

The collection runs to thousands of pieces: the Palermo and Catania pupi with their embossed armour, the painted playbills, the scripts, but also marionettes, puppets and shadow figures from across Europe, Asia and Africa.

In 2008 UNESCO inscribed the Opera dei pupi on its list of intangible cultural heritage, the first Italian tradition to receive the recognition.

Why it is worth it

You walk between rows of knights in polished armour, Orlando and Rinaldo, Saracens and princesses, and realise how large and heavy they are up close. Then you find the Javanese shadow puppets, the Czech marionettes, and understand that the museum is about a universal language. If there is a show in the small theatre inside, stay: the clash of armour is something else altogether.