Guided tour

For visitors who wish to be navigated around the space, please click on the video below for the Italy gallery guided tour.

For screen reader users to follow is the wall panel text and audio descriptions for the 3D models or you can download the text as a Microsoft Word document.

Italy and the Paralympics

Italy has played a major role in the Paralympic Movement’s history - hosting what is now known as the very first Summer Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960. In this gallery, we focus on the origins of disability sport in Italy, and the experiences of British Paralympic athletes who participated in the 1960 Games. This is contrasted with the 2006 and the upcoming 2026 Paralympic Games, reflecting the growth of the Games and the development of the modern Paralympic Movement.

At the time of this gallery’s launch, we look forward to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games. British athletes have found success in alpine skiing and snowboard events in recent Winter Paralympic Games.

Dr Antonio Maglio, Italian Paralympic pioneer

After the Second World War, injuries sustained by service people resulted in more disabled people in society. In Italy new laws were aimed to assist them, but negative attitudes towards disabled people remained. Meanwhile, as sport became a growing source of entertainment and recreation in Italy, some looked to Stoke Mandeville to see the benefit of sport for disabled people. 

Dr Antonio Maglio is known as the pioneer behind Italy’s Paralympic Movement. Dr Maglio was a neurologist, researching spinal cord injuries in the mid-1950s. Alongside medical care, he focused on the psychological adjustment to life as a disabled person. Dr Maglio introduced a multi-sport programme for his patients at the Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortunati sul Lavoro - or the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL). Based on Dr Guttmann’s rehabilitation programme at Stoke Mandeville, sports included swimming, track-and-field, table tennis, fencing, archery and basketball.  
 
In 1957, Dr Maglio became the director of INAIL’s paraplegic centre "Villa Marina" in Ostia, a neighbourhood of Rome. Dr Maglio also encouraged his patients to compete at the annual Stoke Mandeville Games, an international sports competition for wheelchair users. These Games were the precursor to the Paralympics, started by Dr Guttmann in the UK. Dr Maglio’s attendance at these Games was vital to the development of the Paralympic Movement.  

The lead up to Rome

In 1957, Dr Maglio proposed hosting the Stoke Mandeville Games in Rome, to coincide with the upcoming 1960 Olympics. Dr Maglio’s hope was that the link with the Olympics would make disability sport more visible. The event would showcase athletes’ physical capabilities and challenge negative attitudes towards disability. Dr Guttmann and others shared Dr Maglio’s vision and welcomed the idea.  
 
In 1960, the IX (9th) International Stoke Mandeville Games were hosted in Rome. Today, this event is known as the first Paralympics.

Romulus and Remus statue

Co-created audio description 

This is a miniature version of the statue that is the symbol of Rome, a wolf feeding two infants. Underneath her belly, the naked infants suckle on her teats. They are seated, and their arms reach up towards her. This interaction makes some of us feel uncomfortable. Written on the plaque is: Il Centro Paraplegici I.N.A.I.L, Lido di Roma al Dr Ludwig Guttmann, 1962. In English, this means The Centre for Paraplegics, The Italian Institute for Disabled Workers, Rome Lido, to Dr Ludwig Guttmann. 
 
The original statue has been the symbol of Rome for over a thousand years and is found in many places in the city. It depicts the legend of Romulus and Remus, twins who were saved from drowning by a she-wolf, one of whom grew to be the founder of Rome, the city then being named after Romulus. 
 
Rome was the location of the first official Paralympic Games in 1960, although they were only designated as such retrospectively. These Games were the brainchild of Dr Antonio Maglio. He was the head of the organisation named on the plaque, an institution that supported Italians who were injured at work. In some ways it was a partner institution to Stoke Mandeville. We learn that this statue was presented to Dr Guttmann in appreciation of his support.

Reflection by NPHT museum trainees Thomas McCobb and Adam Navarro

I like it because it’s linked to the mythology and history of culture of Italy. I would take it home but treat it with care and put it in a special place. 
  
The wolf looks friendly, but she might be anxious. When a canine’s ears are up, they are responding to something that has caught their interest.

  
The first Paralympics

The IX (9th) Stoke Mandeville Games were held on 18th-25th September 1960.

This was the first Games to align with the Olympics, being held in the same city and using the same facilities. Most events were held in the Tre Fontane Sports Ground, which had been the training area for Olympic athletes.

The Games boasted 328 participants, including 53 women. 117 events were held, across archery, athletics, basketball, dartchery (a combination of darts and archery), fencing, snooker, swimming, and table tennis. 1960 marked the introduction of 50 metre swimming events, and separate table tennis events for women. The Italian delegation was made up of 65 Italian athletes, and Italy was the most successful nation with 82 medals overall. Great Britain came second on the medal table, followed by the Federal Republic of Germany.

The 1960 Games were a major development for Italian disability sport. Despite modest coverage of the event in Italian and international media, it was clear that sport could change perceptions of disability and social conditions for paraplegics. Other rehabilitation centres in Italy followed Maglio’s methods after the 1960 Games.

Getting to Rome

51 British athletes competed across archery, athletics, basketball, snooker, swimming and table tennis events. 
 
The NPHT has some of their stories and memorabilia in the collection.

Sally Haynes MBE organised the Finmere Horse Show in Buckinghamshire as a fundraiser to pay for athletes’ travel to Rome.   
 
The fundraiser included an archery demonstration from patients at Stoke Mandeville hospital, a show jumping event, and a Donkey Derby with top jockeys, attracting lots of media coverage. The show raised £3,097 in total for the Paraplegic Sport Fund (worth £60,000 in 2025). The shows became an annual fundraiser for the early Paralympic Movement. The last show was held in 2015. 
 
This fund enabled the chartering of a British Airways aeroplane. However, air travel was not set up for wheelchair users, and forklifts were used to raise the team onto the plane. The menu included Cayman Island turtle soup and champagne – a very different diet to the carefully planned meals of modern athletes! 
 
Haynes attended the Rome Games as an observer. She went on to compete in archery at the 1964 Games, and fencing in the 1968 and 1972 Games.
 

The first British gold

Margaret Maughan won gold in the women’s Columbia round open archery at Rome in 1960, making her Great Britain’s first Paralympic gold medallist. Maughan was paralysed in 1959, and less than a year later competed on the international stage. She also won gold in the women’s 50 metre backstroke; although she was the only competitor in this event! 
 
She went onto compete at the 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980 Paralympics across archery, dartchery, and bowls events. Maughan was considered a legend among fellow Paralympians, and she was given the honour of lighting the opening ceremony cauldron at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. 

Co-created audio description

This is a replica of the first ever medal won by Great Britain at the Paralympics. It was not designed to be worn around the neck like present-day medals but presented in a pouch. 
 
It feels like a large coin, metallic and cold.
 
We know that historically medals would have been made by people with spinal injuries as part of their rehabilitation at the Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville hospital and also by the staff there. The Games were then very much a product of the hospital and making the medals was an integral part of the Games. 
 
Margaret Maughan stated:

I feel very proud to be at the start of all this, from just a team of 70 British people in wheelchairs at the first Games. Now there are hundreds from all disabilities.

 
British success in Rome (part 1)

Dick Thompson won the most medals on the British team – four gold, one silver, and two bronze across athletics and basketball. Previously, Thompson competed at the Stoke Mandeville Games seven times between 1950 and 1958. He was part of the winning throwing team six times and was awarded a prize for the best individual throw on three occasions. 
 
Fellow British athlete Caz Walton recalled her memories of Thompson: 

He was just a natural athlete. He looked the sort of a typical athlete, a Greek god. But he was such a good field eventer, he threw the javelin with amazing technique, he put the shot, he was good at discus. He was good at all three of those events. On top of which, he was a nice guy. I aspired to be like him. 

Barbara Anderson was the second most-decorated athlete, winning three gold medals in swimming events and one gold in table tennis. Anderson went on to compete at the 1964 and 1972 Paralympics, as well as the third and fourth Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in 1970 and 1974.   

British success in Rome (part 2)

Susan Cunliffe-Lister, Baroness Masham of Ilton won two swimming medals – gold in breaststroke and silver in backstroke. She commented: 

“I won one of the first medals for breaststroke swimming. One night we were invited by a friend to go and have dinner by the Trevi Fountain, where I lost my medal, my gold medal. I think I put it in the side of my wheelchair and I think it just dropped out. Anyway, it hit the Italian press because they thought I’d thrown my medal into the Trevi Fountain!”  

Baroness Masham also took up archery and table tennis during her time at Stoke Mandeville, and took part in an archery demonstration as part of the Finmere Show in 1960. She also competed at the 1964 and 1968 Paralympic Games.  
 
Among many other achievements and honours, she founded the Spinal Injuries Association in 1974, to improve life for those living with spinal injury.  

 
Torino 2006 Winter Paralympics

The Paralympics returned to Italy when the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games were hosted in Torino. The organisers embraced the historic legacy of Rome 1960 as the first Paralympics and made 2006 the “Games for everyone”. The International Paralympic Committee and International Olympic Committee organisers worked to ensure parity between Olympic and Paralympic athletes. 
 
474 competitors attended from 38 countries. There were 58 medal events across the five sports: wheelchair curling, ice sledge hockey, biathlon, cross-country skiing and alpine skiing. 
 
The Torino Games featured a record number of media representatives at the time. This included 1,037 press members, photographers and broadcasters. The Torino Games also benefitted from an internet based free-view service. Fans from 110 countries utilised this service, demonstrating demand for consistent media coverage.  

Compared to the media coverage of the 1960 Games in Rome, Torino showcased the immense growth of the Paralympic Movement.

Aster, the Torino 2006 mascot

Co-created audio description

It is a star-shaped cushion, about eight centimetres in diameter. If you hold it up, it feels like the shape of an asterisk on a page. It’s Aster, the mascot of the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games in Torino, Italy. 
 
One of the arms of the snowflake, the one in the top right, is slightly shorter than the others and ends at an angle. Is this meant to symbolise disability or is it a well-intentioned attempt to celebrate the diversity of the Paralympics? We reflect that all snowflakes are unique and think perhaps the difference in the arm is supposed to remind us that all humans are unique. 
 
We are concerned that the use of a baby cartoon face for the Paralympics may be infantilising, but we learn that Aster has the same face as Neve and Gliz, the mascots of the Winter Olympics in Torino. 

Reflection by Hattie, Rob and Trenelle from Talkback

It’s soft but there’s a hard bit in the middle. It’s a snowflake. I like the feel of snow. It feels soft, cold, liquidy, watery, icy. When you step in snow it sounds crispy. It’s not very cuddly. It would make a good fidget toy.

Spotlight on wheelchair curling

The 2006 Games marked the first inclusion of wheelchair curling at the Winter Paralympics. Wheelchair curling is similar to the non-disabled version of the sport. Players slide stones across the ice towards a target area, and score points based on the distance of the stone from the centre of the target. Each team must include a mix of male and female players. Teams are made up of four players, with a substitute.  
 
British athletes won the silver in the first mixed team event at the 2006 Games. The team featured longtime Paralympians such as Michael McCreadie and Tom Kilin, who had both competed at previous Summer and Winter Paralympic Games in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflecting changes to training and sponsorship, the wheelchair curling team received the same preparation as the Olympic curling team. 
 
The Paralympics return once more to Italy in 2026, hosted in the cities of Milano and Cortina d'Ampezzo. These Games include an evolution of wheelchair curling – the introduction of the mixed doubles event. This event features teams of two players instead of the larger four-person team.

Thank you

This work has only been possible through collaboration, and we thank the following individuals and organisations: 

• For permission to use images and audiovisual materials
  • Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortunati sul Lavoro (I.N.A.I.L),  
  • Comitato Italiano Paralimpico (Italian Paralympic Committee) 
  • Spinal Injuries Association  
  • WheelPower     
• Maria Stella Calà Maglio, widow of Dr Antonio Maglio, for her support and knowledge
• Erminio Fonzo and Dr Ian Brittain for publications covering the Games hosted by Italy
• Museum trainees Ben for object photogrammetry, Thomas for  audio descriptions, and Simon for research, and audio descriptions
• Work placement students Electra and Kaitlyn for supporting image audio descriptions
• Volunteers Lisa Nancollas, David Reynolds and Claire Rider for the audio recordings

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