The Button Museum
Santarcangelo di Romagna

This museum has a unique collection of 14.000 buttons coming worldwide, that narrate the last four centuries of our social history, fashion, politics and economy.

This little object has experienced many lives: it has lived in great noble palaces as well as in prisons, on the uniforms of poor prisoners. It has even traveled in space, since May 2016, in spaceships. Buttons are able to tell us the history of mankind throughout the centuries, through an analysis of social aspects, which can describe vices and virtues of humanity.

Among buttons there are some which display luxury, some that want to seduce, some mischievous, some superstitious, and many others. Buttons have always played a major role when it comes to seduction.

In this context these small things can recall different ages, memories not only related to fashion, but also linked to political and economic events.

The museum consists of two sections:

• The section "Curiosities from the world", in which you can admire buttons dating back to the 17th century. There are buttons that show the image of Lorenzo il Magnifico, some others that show Marie Antoinette, or 5 buttons with the image of D'Artagnan. Those who belonged to the Popes, or some faïence buttons. Among them there is a button designed by Pablo Picasso for Coco Chanel. And even enameled buttons, nacreous, golden, silver-plated, precious stones, etc ...

• The section "Social, political and economic history of customs and fashion of the 20th and 21st century." In this section there is a narration about the main events that have marked the last two centuries, through the story of buttons. The Olympic Games, the Carnival of Venice, the discovery of the Egyptian tombs, Lindbergh and the first flight across the Atlantic ocean. Moreover, a button that displays Maria Montessori, another one coming from the Nazi concentration camps, etc.

Among the various donations we can mention those ones that have been recently given by the two Italian astronauts Samanta Cristoforetti and Luca Parmitano, as well as buttons that come from the cassock of Pope Francis, offered in 2017.

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