The foundations, cooperatives and museums that open art and science to every child in Italy, from Milan to Palermo.
Italy gave the world the Montessori method and the Reggio Emilia approach. Today a network of non-profit foundations, social cooperatives and museum education teams keeps that tradition alive, in big cities and in small provincial towns, often for free or for the price of a coffee.
The idea is old. In 1445 Florence opened a hospital just for abandoned children, and it still works for children and families today. In 1907 Maria Montessori showed in a poor district of Rome that small children learn best with their hands. After the war, parents in Reggio Emilia built their own school from the ruins, and their way of teaching now travels the world. Then came the artists: in 1977 the designer Bruno Munari opened a workshop for children in the Brera gallery in Milan, and museums all over Italy followed. Many of the places on this page are run by non-profit foundations and cooperatives. Your visit, or a small gift, helps a child from a family that could never pay for it.
Pick a colour to follow one story. Every moment shows where you can still see it.
Florence's silk guild opens a hospital for abandoned babies in a building by Brunelleschi. The first child left at the window is a girl, named Agata Smeralda.
See it at: Museo degli InnocentiIn San Lorenzo, Maria Montessori gives poor children child-sized furniture and materials they can touch. The world comes to see.
In a village near Reggio Emilia, parents sell a war tank, trucks and horses left by the army and build a school with their own hands. The young teacher Loris Malaguzzi joins them.
Bruno Munari opens a workshop called Playing with Art inside the Brera picture gallery in Milan: children learn how artists work by doing it themselves.
See it at: Pinacoteca di BreraCastello di Rivoli, near Turin, opens an education department in its contemporary art museum, for schools, families and children with disabilities.
The entrepreneur Marino Golinelli starts a private foundation in Bologna to bring science, art and ideas to children and teachers.
The Children's Museum of Milan is born. Since 2014 it lives in the Rotonda della Besana, a round courtyard that was once a cemetery.
Naples opens a science centre in the old factories of Bagnoli. After an arson attack in 2013, the city rebuilt it.
A cooperative of mostly women opens Explora, a museum where children from 0 to 12 can touch everything. It lives without public money.
A couple from San Francisco sells their tech company and opens a children's museum in the heart of Lecce, in the far south.
See it at: Museo dei Bambini - Lecce Children's MuseumThe museums and places where this story comes alive.
Six centuries of care for children, in Brunelleschi's building. Look for the small objects mothers left with their babies. Workshops for families.
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi makes every exhibition fun for families, with free family kits and workshops for children and teenagers.
Rome's children's museum near Piazza del Popolo, run by a non-profit social cooperative. A small city where children can shop, cook, build and experiment.
A foundation that turns a former cemetery courtyard into a playground for the mind, with exhibitions and workshops that change every season.
The home of the Reggio Emilia approach, run by the non-profit Reggio Children Foundation. Ateliers for children and families, and visits for teachers from all over the world.
Fondazione Golinelli's science and art centre in Bologna, with labs for schools from nursery to secondary school.
The Education Department of the contemporary art museum near Turin: art workshops for all ages, made accessible for children with disabilities.
Naples' interactive science centre by the sea, with a planetarium and Corporea, a walk through the human body.
A new hands-on museum in the old town of Lecce, with a quiet sensory room and a special corner for the youngest.
In Palermo, the association Nova runs free summer workshops here for children aged 6 to 11 from families facing hardship, using Greek and Roman myths.
In the San Lorenzo district, for the children of poor families.
With the tank, some trucks and horses left by the army.
The round Rotonda della Besana was built as a cemetery for the city hospital.
A social cooperative, mostly run by women, without public funding.