A Unique Collection
At the Civic Museum of Cuneo, an original collection of Lenci cloth dolls from the 1930s is displayed and preserved. The collection consists of 27 groups of dolls dressed in the traditional garments of the Cuneo area, purchased by Euclide Milano, the museum’s first founder, and then dressed and styled at their own expense by teachers, seamstresses, and ladies or gentlemen from the valleys, in a commendable display of generosity during the fervor of preparations for the museum’s grand opening in 1936.
The Cradle on the Head
Among these, a female figure stands out, perhaps the most interesting case in the entire collection, due to the object she carries on her head: a thin wooden cradle containing, securely protected by blankets and ribbons, a miniature reproduction of a newborn. A note from 1983 attributes the costume: “Mrs. Laura Marcengo (Chiusa Pesio), dressing of a woman from Val Pesio with a cradle on her head.”
Traditions of “cradles … in … air” that Return
The tradition of carrying a newborn with a cradle on the head is still documented today in Fobello, in Valsesia, where a girl trained for the not simple task carries the child to the entrance of the church where the baptism will take place, to then hand it over to the parents or the godmother.
With the help of a skilled seamstress from Chiusa Pesio, therefore, the founder of the Civic Museum of Cuneo aimed to document a traditional custom, widespread in the valley communities, through an object strongly linked to the feminine world, a doll that seems to teach girls how to become women, mothers, and godmothers.
