Belonging to the extensive artistic collections of the Sforza Castle in Milan, the Institute preserves over twenty-seven thousand specimens from the 15th to the 20th century: from preliminary graphic designs to the creation of figurative works, architectural and decorative arts, to drawings of independent artistic value.
The formation of the collection dates back to the 19th-century legacies of Pompeo Marchesi, Antonio Guasconi, Gian Giacomo Attendolo Bolognini, Camillo Tanzi. Subsequent acquisitions include drawings from artists or collectors such as Carlo Amati, Luca Beltrami, Juan Bernasconi, Amero Cagnoni, Ausonio Canavese, Antonio Durini, Paolo Gaffuri, Vittore Grubicy, Gaspare Gussoni, Giuseppe Maggiolini, the Mora brothers, Pompeo Mariani, Alfonso Orombelli, Oreste Silvestri, Luigi Alberico Trivulzio, Isaia Zancone. Notably, there are significant figurative documents from the Lombard, Venetian, and Veneto areas, as well as crucial groups for the history of drawing from Neoclassicism to Futurism.
Among the distinctive collections of the Institute are ancient sheets that belonged to the celebrated connoisseur Giovanni Morelli; preparatory examples by Lombard painters of the 16th and 17th centuries received from the Milanese church of Santa Maria presso San Celso; volumes with architectural projects by Baroque artists.
