About us

A warm welcome to the portal of the Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments, in Torricella del Pizzo, a small strip of land where the course of the great river marks the border between Lombardy and Emilia. It is no coincidence that such a special museum was born right here, where history tells of events that make this little village singular and its people special — people to whom I, Ernesto Marchetti, creator of this museum, have always belonged.

In these pages I will guide you to discover something whose historical and cultural value perhaps you do not yet know well enough — a value that speaks of us, of our parents, of our grandparents, of our origins. And I will lead you to know this little village, gathered around its small square and along its streets, in the homes of my fellow villagers, where the spirit of family, of the land, of values lost elsewhere is still strongly felt.

Follow me through the folds of this small society, through tales of country life and its everyday “ordinary” things — so simple and, for this very reason, so extraordinary, so true, by now so rare. Welcome to Torricella del Pizzo, where even nature is discreet, like its sounds, like that music which once spread through the streets, emerging magically from a little cart with the simple turn of a crank.

Ernesto Marchetti — from Torricella del Pizzo