TOURIST! The fascination of traveling on Lake Garda – MuSa Salò

From April 26 to October 4, 2026, MuSa – Museo di Salò is hosting the exhibition TOURIST! The Fascination of Travel on the Garda between Romanticism and Belle Époque, curated by Paolo Boifava and Maria Paola Pasini with the collaboration of Attilio Brilli, Italy’s most reputed expert on the Grand Tour.

More than one hundred works-drawings, watercolors, posters, illustrated guidebooks, clothing and travel objects, and an extensive photographic repertoire-tell the story of a century of transformations in the landscape of Lake Garda between the 19th and 20th centuries as it has never before been told.

The works exhibited

Among the rarest pieces is Jakob Wetzel’s Voyage pittoresque au lac de Garda (1824) with fifteen hand-watercolor printed views, exhibited for the first time in Italy in its entirety. It is accompanied by unpublished drawings and watercolors by Luigi Basiletti, Girolamo Joli, Basilio Armani, and Wilhelm Hollstein (1830-1850).

Belle Époque travel items and clothing

From private collections come the Austrian case with detachable silver cutlery (Pietro Richiedei Collection), a French artist’s 1890s travel box with the original pastille watercolors, the monogrammed silver toilette set of a noble Austrian house (Mara Bertoli Collection), and the painted fan with souvenir views of Salò, Gargnano and Desenzano from 1850 (Magda Spada Collection). Next to it, holiday and garden party dresses from the Belle Époque.

The historical photographs

Among the photographs on display (1880-1913) are the names of the Alinari brothers, Giovanni Negri, Alois Beer, and Moritz Lotze, the German who founded in Verona one of the most accredited photographic studios in northern Italy.

Catalog

200-page catalog with essay by Attilio Brilli (Scripta edizioni, Verona – €24 in bookstores, €20 at MuSa bookshop).

Practical information

Tickets: full 9 €, reduced 7 €, children 5 €, groups 15-35 pp 7 €, schools 5 €.
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (closed Monday).
Reservations: 0365 20553 – info@museodisalo.it