The store with no name


The store with no name

Friday, June 26th, 2015

One day when I went with Giancluca for a pizza we went to a street that I don’t know very well, San Vitale. For the most part it was not all that interesting other than the nice pizza at Spacca Napoli. I had thought that the pizzeria opened at noon but when we arrived we were told that it didn’t open until 12:30 so we just walked around for awhile perusing the relatively sparse offerings of shops. Then we ran across this place – the one with no name. I realized that I had been in this shop the first time I had ever visited Bologna over 20 years earlier and had been fascinated by it. It is a shop that principally sells all kinds of vintage advertising, posters, calendars, point of purchase displays and that sort of thing. There were posters for travel, posters for chocolates, posters for wines and liqours and even fascist propaganda posters.

I had remembered going there and had done a Google search for posters in Bologna to no avail. What a pity that it doesn’t have the visibility that it deserves because it is a fantastic and unique store. The proprietor is Antonio Niero and he speaks almost flawless English with a bit of a British accent. In fact at first I thought that he was a British expat.

Antonio describing a poster

Antonio describing a poster

Pirelli Tires

Pirelli Tires

Cheese and Vermouth

Cheese and Vermouth

Everyone knows Campari, right?

Everyone knows Campari, right?

A wall of images

A wall of images

I was really tempted by this calendar

I was really tempted by this calendar

"Gone with the Wind", motorcycles and lots of other stuff

“Gone with the Wind”, motorcycles and lots of other stuff

Anti-American fascist propaganda

Anti-American fascist propaganda

More political posters - on left, fascist, on right victory over fascism

More fascist political posters

Wide variety of stuff on display

Wide variety of stuff on display

And yet more

And yet more

As you can see it is not only posters, there are cards, buttons, and almost every imaginable advertising medium. It’s a fascinating shop, so if in Bologna it’s worth your while to stroll down San Vitale to number 54 and say hello to Antonio for me.

 

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