Umberto Tirelli, a tailor from Gualtieri (Gualtieri 1928 – Rome 1990), created the most important costumes in the history of cinema and theater of all time, becoming one of the highest reference points for theatrical and film tailoring.

Umberto Tirelli, a tailor from Gualtieri (Gualtieri 1928 – Rome 1990), created the most important costumes in the history of cinema and theater of all time, becoming one of the highest reference points for theatrical and film tailoring. He was the founder in Rome (in 1964) of Tirelli Costumi and he was the closest collaborator of some of the greatest costumes designers in the world. He collected clothes and he defined himself as a “fashion archaeologist”. His passion for the history of tailoring, costume and design had given him the ability to reproduce clothes of all ages.

There are countless clothes from Umberto Tirelli’s skilled hands. In his long carreer, full of seccesses, he collaborated in che making of film suche as: Gattopardo, Morte a Venezia, Ludwig by Luchino Visconti; Amarcord, Casanova, La Città delle Donne by Fellini; Medea by Pasolini; ‘900 by Bernardo Bertolucci; Amadeus by Miloš Forman; Momenti di Gloria by Hugh Hudson and many others.

In 1992, after Umberto Tirelli’s Death, by the will of Tirelli himself and Dino Trappetti (his successor in the direction of Tirelli Costumi) were donated to the Municipality of Gualtieri an artistic Heritage that includes 53 painting and graphics of great value, and two costumes of extraordinary importance. The heritage is currently exhibited on the main floor of Palazzo Bentivoglio in the evocative Sala di Icaro, painted between 1609 and 1610 by Sisto Baldocchio, painter of Agostino and Annibale Carracci’s school.

The two costumes exhibited are truly priceless: one of this is the costume worn by Romolo Valli in Enrico IV by Pirandello direcetd by Giorgio De Lullo, and the costume worn by Romy Schneider in Ludwig by Luchino Visconti.

The heritage of pictorical and graphic works includes artists auch as: Balthus, Bice Bricchetto, Corrado Cagli, Felice Casorati, Fabrizio Clerici, Giorgio De Chirico, Lila De Nobili, Lenor Fini, Giosetta Fioroni, Piero Guccione, Renato Guttuso, Mino Maccari, Giacomo Manzù, Marino Mazzacurati, Pasquier Franco Polizzi, Nino Tirinnanzi, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, Yannis Tsaroukis, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Piero Tosi.