The Non-European Collections of the Sforza Castle in Milan are the result of combining several historical ethnographic collections belonging to various Milanese public institutions.
Since 1858, the Civic Museum of Natural History has had a section called “Ethnography and Archaeology Collection,” which has been regularly enriched with objects and artifacts from different parts of the world.
In 1892, thanks to a donation made to the Patriotic Museum of Archaeology, another public ethnographic collection was formed, following which prehistoric and ethnographic works were transferred from the Museum of Natural History to the Patriotic Archaeological Museum.
With the establishment of the Sforza Castle Museums, the collection of the Patriotic Museum of Archaeology was transferred to the Castle and further enriched in 1929 by another transfer of objects from the Museum of Natural History. In August 1943, a bombing destroyed most of the ethnographic objects at the Castle, reducing the collection almost exclusively to the American and Asian core.
With the progressive specialization of expertise within the different sections of the Sforza Castle in Milan, the Ethnographic Collection became part of the Civic Collections of Applied Art, later Artistic Collections, taking the name of Non-European Collections.
Considering the growing importance of the Collection (about 6,300 works to date), only minimally exhibited at the Sforza Castle (in the Rocchetta Courtyard, rooms 30 and 36), a museum specifically dedicated to it was planned in 2000: the Ansaldo Space Milan – Center of World Cultures, currently under construction in the former Ansaldo industrial area in the Porta Genova district. The project’s completion is scheduled by 2015.
