The Fausto Cannone Museum of Multiethnic Musical Instruments is in Alcamo, in the former church of San Giacomo de Spada, near the Teatro comunale Cielo d'Alcamo and the castle of the counts of Modica. It grew from the donation of Fausto Cannone, a teacher, poet and singer-songwriter from Alcamo who died in September 2017, and who for almost thirty years travelled the world acquiring string and wind instruments, all in working order and bought in their countries of origin: from the forests of Brazil to the Australian deserts, from India to the heart of Africa. According to the sources it is the first ethnomusical museum in Sicily.
What to see
The collection has more than two hundred instruments, from Thailand to Tibet, from New Guinea to South America, from Polynesia to China, from Australia to Argentina and South Africa, as well as several European countries. Many are humble instruments made from parts of plants or animals, but there are also fine craft pieces: flutes, cymbals, drums, bagpipes, accordions, violins, guitars, mandolins, harmonicas.
The first piece collected is a three-string crotalok from Mauritius. There is a xylophone from Buddhist monasteries with its frame carved from a single block of ebony in the shape of three dragons, a Bolivian charango made from an armadillo shell, an Italian violin of 1714, an Egyptian qanun with 78 strings, an African nanga with an oval body closed with skin, the Brazilian berimbau with a gourd as sound box, a Finnish kantele and the single-string gusle of the Balkans.
Visiting
The museum was founded in 2014 and opened in July that year in two rooms of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in the former Jesuit college; since June 2018 it has been in its present home, and on 28 November 2022 the new display with cases and showcases was opened, together with a catalogue. Opening times and tickets should be checked with the municipality.
Our editors' tip
The church of San Giacomo de Spada was linked to an old hospice, a destination and waypoint for pilgrims heading to Santiago de Compostela.
