The new exhibition proposed by the Municipal Library and the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Trento, "To the Last Cry", which will introduce visitors to signs and advertising boards used in Trento in the first half of the last century, can be visited until 31 March.
The exhibition focuses on the activities that dealt with clothing, accessories and hairstyles, exhibiting images, books and periodicals preserved in the Historical Archive and in the collections of the Municipal Library. Among these, a substantial part is represented by the projects with which the merchants requested authorization to display signs and tables outside their store. The owners of the assets were in fact required to submit an application for posting to the Municipality of residence, indicating the place of exhibition and attaching a copy of the drawing. The authorization was then granted (or denied), provided that the advertising found an appropriate place among the architectural lines of the building's façade and that it was then always maintained in good condition.
The multifaceted signs affixed above the entrances of the shops, which were often commissioned from local painters or decorators, and the colourful advertising boards hung in various places in the city have long characterised our streets, adding decorative elements and restoring a particular atmosphere to the different neighbourhoods. Their effectiveness has long made them, along with newspaper ads, two indispensable forms of advertising for many businesses.
