Museo Casa Galimberti, Cuneo

If you want to be cheerfully filed, just like in the fascist period, just go to the house museum of an anti-fascist; unbelievable but true! At least this is how it is in the Galimberti House Museum, in Cuneo, from what appears on the municipal website and what the guide I met, administered by the Municipality of the Piedmontese capital, told me upon request. Let's go in order. I thought that, first of all, I would have been asked to pay a price, even if it was negligible, while the visit is free. Nonetheless, it gratified the senses very little, above all considering the cost of going to an art place (unless it is really disproportionate) one of the last elements to take into consideration for an overall judgment. The tour begins, in fact, having to submit to the pre-set story managed by the guide, whether you want it (generally I don't disdain it, but it's one thing to choose it, another is to see it, I dare say, inflicted) or not. In this way it becomes difficult to dwell pleasantly on the (albeit small) works kept. The house has hosted three generations, starting from the grandfather of Duccio Galimberti, with whose wife he had fourteen children and who had installed his own printing house on the ground floor, to pass on to his father, Tancredi (politician, even at national level, with an intense and commitment to the local population, who was appointed, at the height of his career, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs), of the anti-fascist who is celebrated here, precisely Duccio, a lawyer like his father. Curiously (but as it was also potentially conceivable) poor Duccio's anti-fascism must have passed for more than what are made to believe as fascist sympathies of his family of origin, and as very few if not non-existent of them are, at first glance, the traces in the museum. On the other hand, the effigies of those who rowed, not without bloodstain, for a manu militari annexation of a kingdom that no one had attacked and was peacefully going about their own business, such as that of the Two Sicilies, are fairly consistent. Representations of Garibaldi in primis and Mazzini in secundis, but also Cavour, adorn the spaces of this place, which bears witness to an important family life, particularly for the Cuneo area. The environment is sufficiently obscure, in a figurative sense, as one could have imagined an environment, albeit professional and domestic at the same time, nineteenth-century Piedmontese: austere, of the locution peculiarly capturing the more serious part of the imprinting. At the end of the journey (and here comes the note which prompted me to award a single star), the guide tells me, as if nothing had happened, not that I could have, but that I should have: 1) released my name, surname and number by telephone, 2) answering a questionnaire of appreciation intended for the Municipality, as well as 3) answering a questionnaire of appreciation intended for its cooperative (Itur). I am appalled and when I try to make her observe the absurdity of the thing, instead of acknowledging it, she "makes it worse", adding that it is now practice almost everywhere (such a claim). It's a pity he didn't tell me precisely where (and at that point starting the discussion from two non-matching or even neighboring levels, a question would not have offered me the slightest guarantee of an unequivocal answer), in order to verify (and possibly help other subsequent potential visitors). Despite the attempt to emotionally involve the user by keeping company along the whole process (and herein lies, evidently, the marketing technique in use, which however contrasts not only with manners, but also with the actual rules in force at the very moment in which it begins with >), I agreed to answer (and benevolently, even in a by now disgruntled mood) the questionnaire (spoiled by the presence of the museum guide for filling in) of appreciation intended for the Itur cooperative. Of course, not the rest. Reluctantly, but definitely, I advise against a visit to the Galimberti House Museum in Cuneo.

Although the figure of Duccio Galimberti is counted among the few anti-fascists who tried to free Italy from the growing war-mongering subculture, in reality the ancestral home bears only very few traces of the path that the young lawyer had to do. Unfortunately, it is consequential to the widespread management of an unfamiliar and listless mold by the services in charge of culture which for years has appropriated the historic spaces, treating them as if they were their fiefdom or has made havoc on them. Trivial and botched biographical news, heavy atmosphere and absent ventilation, bad acoustics and misplaced furniture.

There is no need to buy tickets because admission is free, our guide was very kind and knowledgeable. I recommend this visit to anyone who wants to discover a beautiful historic house museum and library in Cuneo, we recommend booking the visit by email.

A visit full of both political/historical and artistic meanings. Cristina Giordano is a concrete and very prepared guide. We have discovered a very significant reality

Interesting house museum about a credible hero of the Resistance. All free, including Elena's competent and reliable guide, with punctual digressions on the Savoy mentality