In Pieve Santo Stefano, a small town in the province of Arezzo, there is a place where memory and writing are celebrated. This is the Small museum of the Diary, founded in 1984 by Saverio Tutino and in 2016 joined the National Small Museums Association.
Over 9000 autobiographical testimonies
The Piccolo Museo del Diario is to all intents and purposes an intense multisensory and interactive journey with the aim of telling the public precious autobiographical testimonies. Inside there are in fact letters, diaries and memoirs of ordinary people who have told the history of Italy from an absolutely new point of view. Throughout the store can rely on over 9000 autobiographical testimonies covering about 300 years of history. Many letters are from children and young people and the stories meticulously reconstructed by those in charge of the Piccolo Museo del Diario are exciting.
Among the most evocative and emblematic stories of the place is that of Clelia Marchi who decided to leave a testimony of his life. A Mantuan farmer with eight children, she wrote her biography on a sheet of the trousseau. It is now the most precious relic of the Piccolo Museo del Diario and is located inside Palazzo Pretorio.
How the Piccolo Museo del Diario is structured
The structure is divided into four rooms. The first is embellished with an artistic installation that allows visitors to open doors and drawers and listen, see and touch some of the most fascinating stories. In the second room there is the corner Caro Saverio dedicated to the founder of the Archive of the diaries, Saverio Tutino. In this place they listen to each other excerpts from diaries or manuscripts come alive on digital screens.
In the background are the words of the protagonists, "rustle of others”That Saverio Tutino listened to rise from the shelves which over the years were increasingly filling up with diaries. The third room is the room of Rabito, an autobiographical masterpiece written by a semi-illiterate roadman from Ragusa. Carved in squared sheets from an Olivetti Lettera 22, Rabito tells his story and that of the twentieth century. The fourth and last room is dedicated to Clelia Marchi.
The history of the museum
Until 2013 all the treasures of the "City of the diary”Were inside a simple archive made up of folders. Anyone who approved in Pieve Santo Stefano, attracted by the writing "City of the diary", imagined finding a Praetorian Palace a museum exhibition. But until a few years ago, everything was meticulously cataloged. Clelia Marchi's Sheet was exhibited only once a year. The occasion was due to three days of the Pieve Award.
For many years all the documents were literally pulled out of the folders to allow collaborators and staff to tell the connected stories. Only over time did the need arise to exhibit the manuscripts and to give space to all the stories that were hidden. This is how the Piccolo Museo del Diario was born, a place to celebrate the strength of memory and writing.
