Collezione Maria Signorelli

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Toy theatres  

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Life of Maria Signorelli

Puppets of Maria Signorelli  

The Puppets of Maria Signorelli - i fantocci

The fairy tales, nursery rhymes and films

Shows with classical and modern texts, films

  The ballets of Maria  Signorelli

Podrecca Fund 

Trieste puppets 

19th-20th century Italian rod and glove puppets

18th century Italian marionettes 

19th-20th century Italian marionettes 

20th century foreign rod and string puppets 

Eastern and Wayang puppets and marionettes

Sicilian, Pugliese and Neapolitan puppets  

Shadow puppets

Masks

Toy rod, glove and string puppets    

Seven trunks of stage properties

  Paper and card theatres, sets and characters   

Dolls 

Italian and foreign literature on the history and techniques of puppet theatre

Toy theatres  

Scripts of puppet and marionette plays  

Posters of puppet theatre productions and festivals

The exhibitions

In this section there are a series of toy theatres, predominantly from Poland, fitted with backcloths of coloured board around 40 x 30cm in size, and characters constructed like rod puppets, around 20cm (30, with the rod), with head and limbs in papier mâché. 

One arm is manipulated with a small iron rod. 

The  tales featured are full of princes, dragons and knights: among others there are The Elephant’s Child by  Rudyard Kipling, containing all the animals described (other than the main character, the Parrot, the Snake, the Hipppotamus and the Crocodile). These little theatres were used either by children or for educational purposes in schools. 

There are also some Italian theatres of the 1940s, roughly 50 x 40cm, in thin plywood covered in coloured paper, with curtains, wings and backcloths.

  pictures