At Fiere di Parma (October 3–11), collateral exhibitions dedicated to musical instruments, historic menus, antique handkerchief, and public telephony explore objects as accidental archives of human rituals, relationships, social practices, and collective memories. Ilaria Dazzi, Brand Manager: “Objects do not merely preserve the memory of things; they safeguard the very way people inhabited their own time.” 

(Parma, 29 June 2026) – An embroidered handkerchief. A menu from the Titanic. A vintage telephone booth. A Burmese musical instrument that no one alive knows how to play. These are objects designed for daily life that have quietly transformed into silent guardians of extraordinary, time-honored stories. Mercanteinfiera Fall 2026, taking place at Fiere di Parma from October 3 to 11, marks its 45th edition with four side exhibitions that explore material culture through everyday objects that have evolved into archives of collective memory.

As one of the world’s leading events for antiques, mid-century modern design, historical artifacts, and vintage collectibles, the exhibition returns with a program that transforms fragments of the past into windows into history and evolving societal trends.

It is within this framework that Vintage Photo Parma emerges: a new addition to the Fall edition. This section is dedicated to vernacular, anonymous, and vintage photography, born from the growing interest this genre is attracting within international collecting circles and from Mercanteinfiera‘s desire to open a new space for visual research.
In collaboration with Fabio Castelli, the section presents works by contemporary artists who reinterpret anonymous photographs through manipulation and montage, showcased alongside a selection of vernacular images produced between the invention of photography and the end of the analog era, visual traces of memory, affection, and celebration. Rounding out the exhibition are photographs chosen for their visual and conceptual impact, both anonymous and attributed, spanning from the origins of the medium to the mid-20th century.

“Sounds and horizons: a journey through unexpected Instruments”, curated by Flavio Dassenno and Luigi Blesio, brings to Parma an extraordinary collection of musical instruments from Africa, India, Tibet, Indonesia, and Burma, the result of decades of travel by Brescia-based collector Luigi Blesio. Featuring anthropomorphic Santal lutes, Burmese harps, Himalayan sarindas, and Afghan rebabs, these handcrafted artifacts are entirely unique, with many now lost even to their lands of origin. While these instruments have long fallen silent, losing the sonic purpose for which they were born, they hold entirely intact their power to evoke master craftsmanship, sacred musical traditions, and cultures far removed from the Western imagination.

The boundary between document and artifact blurs in “A World of Menus,” curated by Maurizio Campiverdi, Franco Chiarini, Giulio Fano, Matteo Ghirighini, and Roberto Liberi for Garum, Biblioteca e Museo della Cucina. The exhibition, whose catalogue won the prestigious 2025 Gourmand Awards, brings to Parma around 70 select pieces from the collection’s 400 originals. Highlights range from the oldest known printed menu, dating back to 1803, and a rare menu from the Titanic, to a handwritten sheet with an autographed dedication by Gabriele D’Annunzio for the Bersaglieri cyclists’ dinner in Fiume, as well as the royal wedding menus of Charles and Diana, and William and Kate.

“Woven histories: the handkerchief through fashion, memory and etiquette”, in collaboration with Arcadia and curated by Ilaria Dazzi and Simona Palo, traces three centuries of Italian and European material culture through pieces dating from the 18th to the 20th century. The display features bridal handkerchiefs, aristocratic crests, and historical cloths bearing the signatures of soldiers from the Great War. These are objects that have witnessed rituals of love, codes of etiquette, and social conventions, offering an unexpected glimpse into the history of fashion, customs, and human relationships.

Rounding out the program is ““Pronto chi parla?” The Evolution of Italian Public Telephony”, curated by Museo della Telefonia Pubblica of Leonmario Moretti.  Telephone booths have already become artifacts of a very recent archaeology: so omnipresent for decades that they became invisible, only to vanish in a matter of years along with the very purpose for which they were born. The exhibition presents them not as obsolete technology, but as small public rooms dedicated to urgency, the relational infrastructure through which generations of Italians kept long distances, affections, and conversations that couldn’t wait alive. At the same time, they evoke the memory of a forgotten freedom: that of being reachable only for the duration of a phone call.

The Fall edition also introduces a special section dedicated to vintage books and posters, in collaboration with Luca Cena.

“There are objects,” states Ilaria Dazzi, Brand Manager of Mercanteinfiera, “that move through daily life completely unnoticed, until time finally reveals them as testimonies. The exhibitions in this edition of Mercanteinfiera stem from that very perspective on material culture as an accidental archive of languages, rituals, and ways of living together. Because objects do not merely preserve the memory of things; they safeguard the very way people inhabited their own time.”