Spazio De Gasperi
A permanent exhibition dedicated to the Trentino statesman Alcide De Gasperi in Trento, at Palazzo Thun in Via Belenzani.
The Spazio De Gasperi marks the recognition of the particular bond that unites Alcide De Gasperi in Trento. In 2018, the statesman's daughter, Maria Romana, decided to donate hundreds of documents, photographs and objects belonging to her father to the Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino and the Municipality of Trento.
Traces of his personal life, youth, politics, difficult moments and those that marked his successes.
The place identified, Palazzo Thun, seat of the Municipality of Trento, seemed the most suitable for the strong symbolic dimension that unites the past – De Gasperi was elected municipal councillor in 1909 – to the present of that city where he lived until 1918.
The entire biographical story of Alcide De Gasperi is revived in an exhibition that brings back the idea of a family archive in a stylised, contemporary form, which enhances the documents exhibited in original.
Objects, cards, notes, are placed in a chest; well protected, the original edition of the Constitutional Charter is visible with the signatures at the bottom of Alcide De Gaperi (at that time President of the Council of Ministers), Enrico De Nicola (President of the Republic) and Umberto Terracini (President of the Constituent Assembly).
The photographs are shown in their original format, some crumpled, others with reminders from family members, to become objects capable of bringing visitors to the home of Alcide, his wife Francesca and their daughters.
The editing of some official films, together with others shot by people from Trentino who with their amateur cameras have documented the presence of a fellow countryman who became famous, gives new life to Alcide De Gasperi, gives visitors back the flavour of the fifties of the twentieth century.
In the video editing, Maria Romana's donation meets and mixes with those of many citizens who have paid their family films to the Fondazione Museo storico: a montage open to those who will also find films that have immortalized the statesman in their drawers in the future.
In a separate space but visible to visitors, you can admire the personal desk used daily by Alcide De Gasperi in the Rome home of via Bonifacio VIII (now via Alcide De Gasperi) until his death.
