The first virtual exhibition of the Alessandria Museum, City of Bicycles, and Ghisallo Museum launches on International Museum Day. Included is a tribute to Gerbi and Cuniolo, two champions who were cycling arch-rivals! See the story online at the museum site and on our social networks.
The Museum of Alessandria, City of Bicycles (AcdB), on Palazzo Monferrato, presents a new series of virtual stories, online, Monday, May 18th, 2020, the International Day of the Museum. “Stage one” of this cultural cycling event is devoted to one of cycling’s greatest and least known rivalries, that of Gerbi and Cuniolo.
Roberto Livraghi, director of AcdB Museo says, “We have been developing digital materials for some months, in parallel with the photographs dedicated to the Fausto Coppi exhibition in 2019, “Scatti”***. We have decided, in these unique times, when the priorities are health and prevention by avoiding gatherings, to broadcast our Digital Archives. This project started thanks to the collaboration of the Ghisallo Museum, as we are both focused on cycling heritage.
The goal is not only to digitize iconic material that would otherwise be lost, but to catalog it in an innovative way, so that these cultural events are readily available to all fans and Italian history buffs. History continues to be made and excite everyone. We continue to record it for posterity.
The presentations – a truly 3-D experience – engage the virtual visitor, who, through a simple link – available on the web and social media – walks into the exhibition rooms dedicated to this chapter of history. Images, texts, music: everything converges to immerse the viewer into the story.
This is the initial compilation by AcdB and the Ghisallo Museum who have partnered to revitalize the history of cycling’s first rivalry. Two champions. Two archrivals. Giovanni Gerbi, from Asti, and Giovanni Cuniolo, from Tortona. It is the first record of a cycling dual. Savor the rivalry through black and white images and stories. Photos adorn a full wall enhancing the virtual and creative exhibition.
Follow in the steps of either Gerbi or Cuniolo as you enter the exhibition and sense the sporting rivalry right from the start. Here are two little-celebrated sporting champions before the days of Girardengo and Coppi. In the early nineteenth century Piedmont was the land of champions. And everything started with a bicycle!
