Salvini museum

The mill-museum, Innocenzo Salvini's birthplace and from 1983  art gallery (Cocquio Trevisago 1889 - 1979), is a rare example of the 17th Century industrial archeology, embellished by the remains of an ancient medieval tower and characterised by two wheels and a group of  perfectly functioning gears, moved by the water of the near Viganella stream. 

In this still quiet corner, on the border between the  municipalities of Cocquio Trevisago and Gemonio, the artist lived and worked for his whole life, taking inspiration from the nearby landscape and enlivening it with frugal faces and humble figures, witnesses of a rural civilasation that has now disappeared.  In depicting subjects of everyday life, Salvini adopted a painting technique of strong emotional impact characterised by a warm colour palette.

From the large coutyard, which is overlooked by valuable "en plein air" frescoes of his own production, one enters the museum through the original structure of the mill, which still retains the millstones, sieves, pulleys, elevators and other systems for transporting ground grain. 

The projects and the related automated version of machines were designed by himself, with the intention of being able to have free time to dedicate to art and freely dispose of his family members as models. Three rooms are used for the permanent display of paintings exhibited in rotation, in which are represented the slender silhouettes of the sisters, the beautiful portraits of his mother and father, his brother's work activities, as well as glimpses of the village and local architecture

The paintings  are characterised by vivid light and strong colours echoing the surrounding nature, which clearly trace the original artistic production of a man who was alien to the fashions of his time, centred on an intimate and profound realism. The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions and cultural events.