Documentary collections
The Cité de l’Accordéon et des Patrimoines is the custodian of several documentary collections, partly inherited from the city’s former museums. From an organizational perspective, these archival and documentary holdings are currently divided into five main collections:
- APAT – Amis du Patrimoine de l’Armement de Tulle (Friends of the Heritage of Weaponry in Tulle)
The APAT collection consists of archival documents and documentary materials from the former Tulle arms factory, saved from destruction by volunteer former employees of the factory.
- Arms Museum
The Arms Museum collection includes archives and documentary materials related to weaponry and the history of the Tulle Arms Manufacture, acquired through donations, purchases, and subscriptions.
- Accordion Department
The Accordion Department collection includes documents acquired through donations and purchases. Its main collection is linked to the shop Martin Cayla acquired by the city of Tulle from the Gitton family. Additional documents belonging to this collection are preserved within the Martin Cayla shop itself, a key feature of the Cité’s accordion trail. Other collections — such as sheet music, records, and posters — are also held, including a significant record collection known as the Beaufils collection.
- Resistance
The Resistance and Deportation collection includes holdings from the former Association Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Tulle, donated in 2012, as well as private collections added since then. The archives are deposited and can be consulted at the Municipal Archives of the City of Tulle, while objects are preserved in the Cité’s storage facilities.
For any consultation or enquiry, please contact the Municipal Archives by email or phone: @email // 05.55.21.73.02.
- Cloître Museum
The Cloître Museum includes books, journals, audiovisual materials, and posters.
The scientific staff responsible for processing and promoting these collections are available to assist students, researchers, academics, collectors, museum professionals, and enthusiasts in their research.
You can contact them at: @email
Travelling exhibitions
The Cité offers travelling exhibitions available for loan, in the form of panels or roll-ups, based on previous exhibitions produced by the museums of the City of Tulle.
Would you like to host one of our exhibitions? Please contact the visitor services team.
Head of visitor services team: Eugénie Dezaly @email // 05.55.20.28.76
Among millions of men mobilized during the First World War, André Mazeyrie, a doctor based in Tulle, documented the landscapes he crossed and the people he encountered through ink drawings enhanced with watercolor. After the war, he brought together his drawings, photographs, and personal documents into a substantial bound volume entitled War Sketches. The transmission of this album to his descendants, and their wish to share this family memory, made this exhibition possible. It was awarded the Centenary of the First World War label (1914–1918 commemorations).
The standard weapon of French infantry for many years, the Lebel rifle is now closely associated with the First World War and the image of soldiers emerging from the trenches, bayonets fixed. Drawing on examples preserved in the collections of the Tulle Arms Museum, this exhibition recalls the technical and historical story of the rifle, highlighting both its longevity and its status as an iconic weapon.
This exhibition is dedicated to the history of the Technical Preparatory Military School of Tulle (1924–1967). It highlights the importance of technical education within the school and recalls the strong bond between the institution and the local population, as well as the enduring spirit shared by its former students.
From the 1939-1945 period, while collective memory remembers the tragic events experienced by Tulle’s inhabitants on June 7th, 8th and 9th 1944, the daily life and resistance activities within the factory have often been overlooked. This temporary exhibition realized by Tulle’s museum department retraces the history of Tulle Arms Factory during the Second World War, from the prewar years (1937-1939) to the Liberation in August 1944. In this context, within the workers, various forms of opposition developed – from discreet but effective sabotage to strikes and more direct actions – making the factory an active center of Resistance.
Although the name Baluze can sound familiar in Tulle, few today know Etienne Baluze, one of the city’s most distinguished historical figures and a leading scholar of the age of Louis XIV.
This exhibition a remarkable life journey – human, intellectual and political – which led this native of Tulle, after studying law, to become a close collaborator of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, chief minister to Louis XIV. It also explores his relationship with his hometown at a time when two of its defining crafts emerged: firearms manufacturing and poinct de Tulle lace.
Since the beginning of the construction site of the Cité de l’Accordéon et des Patrimoines, the ASPTT Tulle Photo Club has documented the creation of the new museum.
Their photographs capture each stage of the project, revealing the transformation of the site, the emergence of new structures, and the life of the construction process, as well as the artisans who brought it to life.
