In 1975, Antonio Pasqualino founded the International Puppet Museum in his native Palermo, creating a home for the Pupi marionettes as well as for the large collection of puppetry material from several European countries and the Far East, including France, Spain, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, and many others.
The Museum is spread over three floors and houses a number of exhibition spaces, a bookshop, a library, a video and a film library, and a performance space capable of accommodating a large theater program.
The International Museum of Marionettes is a gem among the museums of Sicily, as it preserves and perpetuates a theatrical form the UNESCO declared part of the "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" (in 2001) – the Sicilian “Opera dei Pupi.”
The Museum is a place full of charm, history, and stories, an unusual and precious window onto the history and folk traditions of Sicily – and the world.
Options
Palermo Digital Audio Guide
Digital Audio Guide + ticket: Explore the entire city independently with the audio guide app and visit the museum with the official admission ticket.
marionette
Official Entrance Ticket
What's included
Entrance Ticket
No guide included
Snacks
What to expect
The Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum
Admission ticket included
Discover Antonio Pasqualino's renowned puppetry collection of over three thousand pieces from Italy and abroad. You'll find Sicilian marionettes (“pupi”), Japanese Bunraku puppets, and figures made by contemporary artists such as Enrico Baj, Renato Guttuso, and Polish director Tadeusz Kantor. You'll also find many shadow theater puppets from the Indonesian Wayang Kulit and Wayang Golek traditions, as well as from the Cambodian Sbek Thom traditions, both of them declared “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity World Heritage” by the UNESCO.
Meeting and pickup
Meeting point
The Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum
Piazzetta Antonio Pasqualino 5, Palermo, 90133, Italy
