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MUSEUM OF MECHANICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS- Castello di Sestola

Accessibility: on foot

The Museum of the mechanical musical instruments, opened in 1993 and inaugurated in July 1995, shows 120 pieces belonging to the Eduard Thoenes' collection, most of them still working. All these mechanical musical instruments document the evolution of the musical technology applied to mechanics, from the beginning of the XVII century to the present days. The Museum, equipped on the upper floor of the Government Palace, inside Sestola Castle, is divided in different rooms, according to the membership groups. The mechanical musical instruments can be, in fact, divided into three groups:1) the barrel organs, 2) the pianola and the cylidric pianos, and 3) the carillon; other four rooms are added to these three sectors: the "robots" halls (4) (mechanical dolls and automatic birds), the talking machines hall (5) (phonographs and gramophones), the automatic pianos hall (6) (roll pianos, that play by themselves) and the electric recording and reproducing hall (7) (recorders, pick-ups, from the vinyl to CD and from the coil to the music cassette). An important characteristic of this Museum is that many instruments are perfectly working and can be listened during the guided tours. The visit itinerary allows, therefore, a direct and complete knowledge of these charming instruments, showing the human genious, and his ability of creating machines destined to play by themselves, replacing the performer. In fact, it is important to underline that the mechanical musical instruments are musical instruments to all intents and purposes (organs, zithers, pianos,...),but they present the further characteristic of playing without any human intervention. This means that they are able to read and to reproduce a "written" or "recorded" music on a mechanical support, such as a punched cylinders, a pierced cardboard tape or a pierced metal-disk. Many types and models of these supports or "recordings" suitable for the various instruments are shown.

Date: Jan 1, 2005 - Dec 31, 2005

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