Museo della Macchina da Scrivere

Tucked away in Milan is a museum devoted to typewriters. The Museo della Macchina da Scrivere opened its doors in 2006. Its founder, Umberto Di Donato, a collector from Campania, spent more than fifty years amassing and cataloguing them. What began as 200 pieces has since grown past 1,800.

The story goes back to an 1882 Caligraph and an 1887 Williams, the model that inspired the Italian inventor Camillo Olivetti. Others belonged to famous Italians such as Francesco Cossiga and Camilla Cederna. Among the highlights stands a Chinese typewriter from the 1920s, fitted with an array of ideograms. An Olympia used during the Second World War still carries its special SS character key. The curiosities even include a fuchsia Barbie toy typewriter. Early calculators round out a collection that reaches beyond typewriters.

You are welcome to touch many of the machines and try them out. The museum regularly collaborates with cultural associations on events, exhibitions and typing courses. Young people get typing competitions of their own. One intriguing piece is a vinyl record from 1950 that Olivetti produced to teach the ten-finger technique.