The paradise of designers, advertisers, and typo lovers has a precise address: Via Carlo Alberto 31 in Treviso. It is here that since May 26, 2017, the Salce collection, the largest privately-owned advertising poster collection in the world, has found a home after being donated to the State by its creator, Treviso native Ferdinando (known to all as Nando) Salce.

Over 50,000 pieces collected from 1895 to 1962, the oldest dating from 1844 and advertising the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, tell the story of nearly 100 years of costume history, from the Belle Époque to the World Wars, to the economic boom of the 1960s. Added to these are many other posters, currently being catalogued, recently donated by various private individuals, continuing the chronology from 1962 to the present.

Every collection, like every obsession, is born from a sudden, strong love: for Nando, at just 17 years old, it springs to mind while walking through Treviso when he sees the poster advertising the Auer patent for the Società Anonima Incandescence a Gas created by Giovanni Maria Mataloni, a bold subject for the time that reminds us that “culture” always arises from the avant-garde. Captivated by the beauty of the girl in the poster, he manages to take it home, and it becomes his “Number One Dime.” From then on, in 1895, Nando never stops, and begins contacting companies, other collectors, and museums to buy, often barter, thousands of posters, which he keeps on the top floor of his house in Borgo Mazzini in Treviso, now the headquarters of the ISRAA.

After a titanic effort to catalog the works, the collection is now housed in two locations. The first is the former Church of Santa Margherita, an evocative exhibition space composed of a concrete cube—the “vault” where the posters are kept—surrounded by a panoramic terrace over 6 meters in diameter for displaying the pieces, and from which the various exhibition corridors branch off.

About a 5-minute walk away, the second location is the San Gaetano complex, which comprises the former convent, spread over four floors, and the church of the same name, whose origins date back to 1182 when it was built for the Knights Templar under the name of San Giovanni al Tempio.

The collection is exhibited on a rotational basis as part of thematic exhibitions and includes the greatest Italian, or Italian-by-adoption, poster artists such as Duilio Cambellotti, Leonetto Cappiello, Marcello Dudovich, Adolf Hohenstein, Franz Laskoff, Achille Luciano Mauzan, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, but also foreign artists, especially French, English and German.

Every poster tells a story, including that of the Veneto region. There are works by the great painter and illustrator Alberto Martini of Oderzo (TV), much loved for his dark illustrations and butterfly-like women, who created several advertising posters for local companies, such as the Menon cycles from Roncade; or by Veronese artist Plinio Codognato, famous for his work commissioned by Fiat and Cinzano, among others. But there are also artists who have contributed to changing the image of the Veneto region, such as the works of Austrian Franz J. Lenhart, who, thanks to his collaboration with ENIT, literally “redesigned” the Dolomites, representing them through elegant skiers, mountaineers, and athletes, and also creating the style of Cortina’s current logo.

And then there are the cult posters, icons of modern history, like the ones created for Campari by Marcello Nizzoli or the 1919 winner of the first advertising competition for Kaliklor toothpaste, with one of the first taglines in history, “a smile is enough to tell my virtues.” And what about Nino Nanni‘s sexy movie stars?

And in 2025, a room in San Gaetano was dedicated to the Treviso-born artist Renato Casaro, the last painter of cinema and one of the world’s greatest film poster illustrators, with masterpieces such as Dances with Wolves, Nikita, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America, The Sheltering Sky, The Last Emperor, Rambo, Never Say Never Again, and countless others.

Useful Info

Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce
Via Carlo Alberto 31
31100 Treviso
Sede Santa Margherita +39 0422 423386
Sede San Gaetano +39 0422 591936

Admission: €10 for two locations, €6 for one location
Open Fri – Sun 10am – 6pm