From planes and trains, to dolls and robots, more than 700 antique toys are on display at the Museum of Rome in the Neoclassical Palazzo Braschi. 

The "For Fun" exhibition is designed with children in mind and acts as a time machine, taking visitors on a nostalgic journey back to childhood, while also providing glimpses into toy rooms of the past. 

"The collection on display, and represented here with its masterpieces, numbers about 700 objects, and is part of a collection of over 10,000 toys, though we can talk about a total of almost 30,000 pieces, because, for example, a doll house is a composite structure with hundreds of individual objects," says Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, the superintendent of Cultural Heritage of Rome.  

The toys were previously owned by a collector from Perugia, Leonardo Servadio, who bought them from a Swedish collector. The municipality of Rome then bought it in 1999 and since then has gone through the process of cataloguing and restoring the delicate and complex objects.

Half of the toys in the collection are German and Swedish and the rest are English, French and American, according to Emanuela Lancianese, the curator of the exhibition.    

The exhibition runs through 22 rooms and is divided into six themes: the city and the countryside; street and sky games; children on the move; family; work; and travel. Rare models include the famous German "Graf Zeppelin," which was the most successful passenger airship of its time. 

In previous times, dolls were also linked to rituals and magic in some cultures, and the two burial Nazca dolls from Peru are an example of this, as they were meant to accompany people on the crossing between life and death.  

Another interesting find is "Elsa's House," which a rare amateur production by watchmaker John Carlsson, who built it for his little sister Elsa and equipped it with an electric lift, which still works today. The project made out of scraps of watch pieces took so long to construct that it was completed when Elsa was 19. 

There are even vintage toys based on famous people of bygone times. 

"We have toys representing French-Canadian quintuplets, born in 1934, who all survived, which was very rare at the time," says Lancianese. 

"Of course, immediately the toy industry mass-produced dolls, which sold very well, representing these five girls, who became famous against their will for having survived the birth and who tried throughout their lives to shake off their fame."

The collection can be found at the Museo di Roma in Palazzo Braschi Rome until 10 January 2021, which encompasses some of The Eternal City's most famous villas. 

Video editor: Riaz Jugon