Livio Parisi Preserves Garda Fishing Heritage with Traditional Tool Collection

“My dream would be to recreate an environment similar to the old taverns of the past, where fishermen from Garda would gather to repair their tools and talk about fishing.” Meanwhile, while waiting to realize it, Livio Parisi, 50 years old, a teacher born in Riva del Garda but living for almost 40 years in Castelletto di Brenzone, trains by collecting traditional fishing tools, some of which are centuries old. “Displaying them in a characteristic environment is a way to introduce our traditions to young people,” he explains. This is where the idea of the tavern museum and the collection of fishing equipment came from.

The objects Parisi keeps in his attic number over a hundred. “I have a bit of everything, from copper and wooden reels to iron fishing rods that were probably used in the last century. But also cork floats, once made from bottle corks, hand-woven nets, and oar shafts,” he details. An assortment of artifacts collected over 25 years, among which Parisi claims there are some truly unique pieces.

Collection of traditional tools

One of these, for example, is a “vivarol”. A kind of wooden box, just under a meter long, shaped somewhat like a boat, with a lid on top and a series of holes along the sides. “It was attached to a trawl behind boats and was used, as the name suggests, to keep the caught fish alive,” he explains. It is a tool that’s about a hundred years old, and Parisi believes he is the only one to own such an old one. But it’s not the only highlight of his collection, he continues.

<—Remaining text with other tools and Parisi’s considerations—>