ROMA TATTOO MUSEUM – Il museo del tatuaggio

HISTORY

This project is born after almost thirty years spent in the magical world of tattooing. Of late I felt an extreme need to give back to that which has made me who I am today. During these years I have been fortunate to live and explore this world, loaded with culture, mystery, and wonderful stories. The intent is to preserve the ancient spirit of this craft and make it available to all those who want to know its true essence and soul.

Thanks to the friendship and support of friends, including Gian Maurizio Fercioni, his wife Luisa Gnecchi, Gippi Rondinella, Gabriele and Gianluca Donnini, as well as my great friend Claudia, I found the strength and enthusiasm to undertake this exciting adventure that wants to be a tribute to the past generations of tattooers and serve as an opportunity for newcomers to enrich their knowledge in respect of the past, leading this marvelous culture into the future while preserving and protecting it over time.

The founder

PHILOSOPHY

The museum of the millennial tattoo culture is born in Rome. Marked by globalization and technology, the current historical period slowly distances us from much of what we do, experience, and have lived. Despite the undoubted benefits for humanity, particularly younger and future digital era generations are often left apathetic. We have thus felt the need to preserve tattooing, one of the most ancient and mysterious traditions on the planet, to protect it from oblivion and save it from the misrepresentations and distortions that have recently been made of it.

Quello che prima era considerato un marchio denso di significati negativi nel nostro paese è stato ormai sdoganato e fa parte stabilmente dello showbiz internazionale, tutto ciò è assolutamente positivo ma si porta dietro il pericolo di un generale appiattimento e della perdita del vero significato che ognuno diversamente dall’altro ha sempre dato al proprio tatuaggio.

Si diceva una volta che un tatuatore non era niente altro che un abile artigiano che sapeva ”grattare” via la pelle e far uscire da dentro e rendere visibile l’anima di ognuno.

Questo è il vero significato di un sito museale come quello che realizzeremo, salvaguardare una tradizione ed un arte antica e divulgarne la storia perché se ne comprenda il più profondo ed immutato significato nel corso dei secoli.

The Tattoo Museum Rome is a private and self-financed structure that recounts tattooing from its magical, religious, or punitive meanings to its therapeutic or tribal ones. A path through the centuries will illustrate these forms and meanings. The museum also wants to narrate, via a visual and multimedia path, the craft’s most recent history, respecting while maintaining the soul of this traditional art alive. With passion and a hint of brilliant madness, tattooists often led adventurous lives. Anecdotes, tales, and life stories will relate the lives of those who embraced this art at a time when following this passion was considered transgressive and as such socially unpalatable. Along the path, artifacts, photographs, and equipment of great cultural value will be the joining the links of this ultra-millennial history. Our goal is to preserve the soul and spirit of this ancient practice that today appears excessively debased by superficiality and empty aestheticism.

MUSEUM

The edifice is a part of a building from the 1800s located in the Parioli district, specifically in the area of Acqua Acetosa. A historically important structure, it is protected by the Cultural Heritage Management.

The property was taken over by an important contemporary master, the painter Bruno Bruni (Bruno D’Acervia). From its high windows, one can catch sight of the Acqua Acetosa fountain, attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, only a few meters away.
We preserved some of the structures of his studio to allow visitors to take in its energy. The roofs and ceilings, with their original wooden beams, frame the prestigious collection, and the space has been deliberately left as antique as possible, to harmonize with the historical artifacts and ancient equipment.

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VIDEO

COLLECTION

L’esposizione è permanente ed è una delle più importanti collezioni private al mondo.

The exposition is permanent and one of the most important private collections in the world. A passionate tattoo artist who devoted his entire life to this craft brought it together over the course of 30 years. Relationships with other great collectors and tattoo museums around the world, spanning back over three decades, allow a continuous renewal of the exposition, making the museum dynamic and always able to present something new.

The collection is considered one of the most complete existing ones, particularly because all its objects relate the most significant historical periods of the tattoo tradition.