Sede: Piazza Centrale
33080 Andreis (Pn)

Orari: The Museum is open on arrangement

Contatti: phone 0427/76007
fax 0427/76304
e mail servizi@comune.andreis.pn.it

The museum was opened in 1981 thanks to the initiative of  municipal Administration and the generosity of the villagers who donated  the objects.

The collection dates back from the second half of the XIXth  to the  first half of the XXth  century.

Outside the museum a wonderful pendulum clock of the XVIII century stands out. In the past it was located in the belfry of the parish church. It is a handcrafted iron masterpiece whose structure reminds the viewer of a bird cage.

At the first floor, in the passage,  there is the layette for the newborn (vests, cuffs, baby booties, bibs, towels) and  a  series of dark dresses for women.
The women of Andreis have always chosen dark colours, especially the black to make their dresses.

In the past, to obey a religious precept,  the women  wore dark for  mourning  the loss of their loved fallen in the World War I but, over the time, this behaviour has become a habituation.

In a room close to a passage there is the old kitchen with the heart, pots, dishes, the precursor of baby-walker  and the hand-spinning tool.

Absolutely interesting is the fretola:  a wooden drawer carried by hands that cremars used in their job.
Cremars were travelling salesmen of  haberdashery like: colours for cloth, reels of cotton, needles and combs. They moved from house to house to sell things.

Andreis was known for the combs and tobacco boxes obtained from processing  the bull horns.
This kind of craftsmanship disappeared in the Fifties.  The  handicrafts  were sold both in surrounding and far villages,  even abroad. It is said that a salesman arrived in Istanbul to sell these things.

The Easter ratchets, called cracelas in local dialet - are another tradition of Andreis wchich every year, during the Holy Week, attracts people from Friuli and foreign country.
The cracela  is an instrument which makes a strong grating sound.
On Maundy Thursday, after the Gloria until Easter, the bells stop tolling and villagers are called to participate in liturgical ceremonies by the sound of cracelas.

In the museum are displayed the ancient wooden masks that  villagers used to cover the face at Carnival.  This tradition was and is also spread in Carnia and Carinthia.
Now the most number of the masks are lost and those displayed  in the museumc are the unique survived from the past.
The masks don’t represent the characters of the Comedy of the Art Improvisation but they show the dramatic and  funny side of  human existence.

Our visit around the museum ends at Barba Anzal’s favria  (Uncle Angel's shop).
The building was donated  to the municipality by Angel's heirs. It has been recently restored for  preserving  the memory of a disappeard job.  In fact  Anzal was a blacksmith very good at forging iron. He had crafted a lot of objects as: keys, locks, gates, pincers and wedding rings.