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