The official name of this Rome museum is Istituto Centrale per la Demoetnoantropologia (Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari), which is why we prefer sticking to National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions. The museum is specializes in Italian traditions at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, although there are artefacts to be admired that go back as far as the 16th century. Since 2016 it is part of the Museo della Civiltà.
Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions Rome
Address, opening hours and admission
Address: Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, 8 – Rome. District: Quartiere Europa EUR. Tel. +39 06 5926148 of 5910709. Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday from 8 AM till 7 PM. Closed: Mondays, December 25. Admission: 4 Euros (EU citizens between 18 and 25: 2 Euros; younger than 18: Free.). The museum is free on the first Sunday of every month. Combi-ticket Luigi Pigorini Museum, Oriental Art Museum, Early Middle Ages Museum and Popular Arts and Traditions Museum: 10 Euros. This Museo della Civiltà-ticket is valid for three days. The Roma Pass is valid.
History and description
The original nucleus of the permanent exhibition is formed by the Lamberto Loria Collection, which in 1911 was enriched by artifacts from all over Italy. That year, to celebrate the 50th anniversiry of the country’s unification, the Italian Ethnography Exhibition took place.
There are more than one hundred thousand traditional works of art and other items that testify to Italy’s cultural heritage, such as regional costumes, wooden utensils and tools, ceramics, paintings on glass, etc.
The collection is thematically divided into various sections, such as the house, clothing, work, transportation, the human life cycle, the year with its various ceremonies, popular religions and superstitions, popular feasts and festivals and traditional musical instruments.
The highlight of the exhibition can only be seen during part of the year: Amongst the various nativity scenes from all over Italy, there is a very famous 18th century Neapolitan one. (In 2014 it can be seen until March 2nd.)
The museum has occupied its present seat, which was designed by the architects Castellazzi, Morresi and Vitellozzi, since 1938. Both the interior and exterior of the building have been richly decorated by various Italian artists.