Collezione
Maria Signorelli
Toy rod, glove and string puppets
The
Puppets of Maria Signorelli
The fairy tales, nursery rhymes and films
Shows with classical and modern texts, films
The ballets of Maria Signorelli
19th-20th century Italian rod and glove puppets
19th-20th century Italian marionettes
20th century foreign rod and string puppets
Sicilian, Pugliese and Neapolitan puppets
Toy
rod, glove and string puppets
Paper
and card theatres, sets and characters
Scripts
of puppet and marionette plays
Posters
of puppet theatre productions and festivals
This section comprises marionettes and puppets of various type (finger, cone and rod) constructed from the first years of the twentieth century up to our own times, totalling around 330 items.
Of various sizes, from roughly 10 to 50cm tall, they are made of all kinds of materials (cloth, wood, plaster, papier mâché) and come from several countries and continents.
There is a showcase of Pinocchios from all over the world (25 items), a series of Japanese finger puppets with polished white papier mâché heads, a group of single-string marionettes from Pakistan, with brightly coloured silk costumes and, from Italy, some charming Bibì and Bibò marionettes from the 1950s with faces painted with playful irony.
There is another showcase of fifteen festive little ‘cone’ marionettes from all over the world, as also forty finger puppets with which complete fairy tales can be re-enacted. Finally, there are thirty little marionettes of Italian commedia dell’arte characters, dating from the 1950s.
All this section of the collection was the subject of an exhibition entitled Burattini per giocare (Puppets
to play with) mounted at the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Zagarolo in April 2002.
