Museo Internazionale della Fisarmonica (Castelfidardo)

The Museo Internazionale della Fisarmonica in Castelfidardo, a town in the province of Ancona, celebrates the instrument that made this small place known around the world: the accordion. Castelfidardo became the global capital of accordion manufacturing after Paolo Soprani founded his workshop here in 1863, and at the industry's height dozens of factories in and around the town supplied accordions, concertinas and bandoneons to players across every continent. The museum, housed in the Palazzo Comunale, holds a large collection of which around a hundred instruments are displayed at a time, tracing the development of the accordion family from early reed instruments through the elaborately decorated concert models of the twentieth century. Visitors see piano accordions, button accordions, bandoneons of the kind used in Argentine tango and rare experimental designs, many richly inlaid and ornamented, alongside tools, workshop reconstructions and archive material explaining how these complex instruments are assembled by hand from thousands of components. The collection illuminates not only the craft but the cultural reach of the accordion, from folk music and dance bands to classical concert halls and the tango orchestras of Buenos Aires. Castelfidardo remains a centre of accordion production and music to this day, hosting an international festival, and the town's identity is bound up with the instrument. Compact and unexpectedly fascinating, the museum offers an unusual window onto a craft and a sound that travelled from this corner of Marche to the wider world, and it pairs well with a visit to the town's accordion workshops and shops.