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Museum visits · Sulmona · Italy
The confetti of Sulmona, from the Pelino museum to the shops on the corso
the almond dressed in sugar in copper pans, the museum inside the factory that has made them since the eighteenth century, and the shop windows of corso Ovidio full of flowers, bunches of grapes and ears of wheat made of confetti, the way the Poor Clares assembled them
In Sulmona confetti, the sugared almonds, are not a wedding favour: they are the city's trade. An almond, usually from Avola, turns in a bassina, the large copper pan that was once hung from ropes and swung by hand, and is dressed layer after layer in sugar, without starch or flour, until it becomes smooth and shiny. In Sulmona they have been made this way, the sources say, at least since the end of the fifteenth century, and tradition has it that it was the Poor Clares of the convent of Santa Chiara, on piazza Garibaldi, who tied them with silk into flowers, bunches of grapes, ears of wheat and rosaries to give to newlyweds. The place to understand it is the Museo dell'arte e della tecnologia confettiera, the museum of the art and technology of confetti making, inside the Pelino factory, a kilometre from the centre: the copper pans, the machines from steam to electricity, the workshop of an eighteenth century confectioner, antique wedding favours, the diplomas from the exhibitions. Then you go back into the centre, to corso Ovidio, where the shops display confetti assembled into bouquets of flowers in every colour, and in piazza XX Settembre there is the Rapone confectionery. The museum is free, and the tour takes a morning, with the motorhome parked at the area below the walls.
Getting there
The Pelino factory is outside the centre, to the south, on the road to Introdacqua: seven hundred metres beyond Porta Napoli, half an hour on foot from the motorhome area, and the rest of the tour is in the centre.
- On foot from the motorhome area in via Iapasseri, described on the Sulmona page: take the lift up to the centre, walk along corso Ovidio to Porta Napoli, and from there head south down via Stazione Introdacqua, as far as number 55. It is a little over two kilometres
- By motorhome to the factory: next to the building there is a car park, and it is worth asking whether there is room when you phone about the opening hours, on 0864 210047
- The shops are all inside the walls, along corso Ovidio and around piazza Garibaldi, where the motorhome does not go: the ZTL, the limited traffic zone, has cameras
- The factories outside the city: William Di Carlo is in viale del Lavoro, in the industrial area towards the station, and Confetti Ovidio in contrada San Nicola, also in the industrial area; there you can get there by motorhome
Practical information
The museum is free and needs no booking; the factory does not publish its 2026 opening hours, so phone first.
Duration an hour at the Pelino museum and its shop, an hour or two for corso Ovidio and the shops in the centre; with the factories in the industrial area it makes a whole morning
Price the museum is free
When to go all year
Suitable for everyone, and children love the shop windows. About the accessibility of the museum, which is on two floors, the sources say nothing
Booking not needed for the museum, where on request there is a guide who also speaks English. Groups ask the factory beforehand
Contacts
Where it is
Sulmona · Abruzzo
Notes
- Pelino's opening hours: today's website is only an online shop and does not give them. The last opening hours published by the factory, in 2023, were Monday to Saturday 8:00-12:30 and 15:00-19:00, for the museum and for the shop, closed on Sundays; other guides give slightly different hours, and one says the museum can be visited on request. Phone 0864 210047, and ask about August and public holidays too
- What is in the museum: opened in 1988, it occupies a wing of the factory, on two floors. On the walls are the diplomas, the medals and the prizes from the exhibitions from the nineteenth century onwards, and the patents; then the collection of antique wedding favours and the first telephone installed in Sulmona. In another room an eighteenth century workshop has been reconstructed, with the mills, the roaster, the mortars, the peeler, and the device with the little sieves for rosolio liqueur confetti; finally the factory's machines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. You also see how the work was done in the copper pans: whether today's production can be seen from the museum the sources do not say
- How a confetto is made: the peeled almond turns in the pan while the sugar syrup is poured in, and hot air dries it; this is repeated layer after layer, then it is polished. No flour, no starch. Di Carlo uses only the pizzuta almond from Avola; Rapone also makes cinnamon confetti, sugar-coated orange peel and saffron confetti. The cinnamon confetti of Sulmona are the ones that, Antonio Ranieri tells us, were sent to Giacomo Leopardi
- The other confectioners: William Di Carlo, at viale del Lavoro 15, with the shop open, the website says, 9:15-13:00 and 15:30-19:00, without stating the closing days (0864 253070); Confetti Rapone, at piazza XX Settembre 7, with its pastel-coloured Art Nouveau interior (0864 51201); Confetti Ovidio, since 1980, in contrada San Nicola, with the factory shop open Monday to Saturday 9:00-19:00 and on Sundays by appointment (393 972 1806). None of the three says it lets visitors see the production
- The shops on the corso: along corso Ovidio and around piazza Garibaldi the shop windows assemble confetti into flowers, bouquets, baskets, butterflies, ears of wheat and bunches of grapes, with tissue paper, tulle and satin. You buy by weight and by the piece; nobody publishes the prices online
- The Poor Clares: the convent of Santa Chiara was founded around 1260 by Floresenda da Palena, and today it is the diocesan museum on the Sulmona page. That the nuns assembled confetti with silk around the fifteenth century is told by the FAI, the Italian National Trust, and by the confectioners, without a dated document; the nuns' parlour, with the wheel, has been closed since the earthquakes
- A confetti festival does not exist in Sulmona: the shop windows can be seen all year. At Easter, when the city is full for the Madonna che scappa, the Madonna who runs away, the shops are open and crowded
- What to take home: confetti keep for a long time and travel well in a motorhome, away from the heat of the dashboard in summer
Photo: Claro48, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Photo: Maddy16869, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Maddy16869, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Zitumassin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Superchilum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
