Of Garibaldi, a museum and a gold painted man

Every place should have a museum.

Now I say that partly because of the many happy times I have spent in them since I was a child and just because I think they add something to where you live.

I was lucky enough to grow up in London which had the lot, from the grand British Museum, to the Tower of London and the small out of the way specialist museums like the Horniman or Geoffrey museums.

And at home in Manchester we have a fine collection which you can add to from the surrounding city of Salford and the smaller boroughs.

So I was more than delighted that we fell across a museum here in Alghero.  It is one of those little places
which owes much to the enthusiasm of its members and is defined by what they have been able to collect.

So if there is a theme or underlying logic to the collection it is just that.  Religious postcards sit beside memorabilia from the time of Italian unification, the Fascist era and the Second World War.  There mannequins dressed in uniforms a few helmets, some guns and German army magazines from 1943.

Tucked away on one wall is a display dedicated to the Italian resistance against Fascist rule and the German occupation, which fits with those on Garibaldi and his Red Shirts.

And during the last few evenings the museum has mounted its own live entertainment.  It started on Tuesday with the presence of four of the group dressed in military uniforms from the period and yesterday they took this a step further with a demonstration of the firepower of their muskets.  All of which was a bit of a difference from the usual street entertainment which consists of the inevitable stationary figure posing for an audience painted in gold or silver.

They seem to be everywhere this year, but for sheer inventiveness you have to give it to the chap who performs nightly in the main piazza.  During the last few nights he has presented himself as a golden businessman complete with case and computer bag and last night as one of those more unpleasant figures from Lord of The Rings.

What he is particularly good at is drawing in the crowd with the silent stationary pose before lunging at some over curious passer-by.  And the crowd love it.  Not so the silver painted man imitating our Lord with cross, long hair and beard.  He draws attention but lacks the presence or fun of his main competitor.
Perhaps he should switch to fire.  I say this because on a pitch just yards away and accompanied by loud music and some wooden dancing is the fire breathing man.  I have to say his warm up draws them in and the longer he takes the more fill the spaces waiting to see the almost impossible act of breathing out fire from his mouth.

But then judging by the numbers in the museum Alghero’s history also pulls them in and for me the museum has it all.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and a popular print from the 1860s