Museum of Musical Instruments

The Museum of Musical Instruments (Museo degli strumenti musicali) is a civic museum in Milan, Italy, housed within the Sforza Castle complex. It holds a collection of more than 700 musical instruments spanning from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, with particular emphasis on Lombard and Cremonese lutherie. The museum is owned by the city of Milan and serves as a significant repository of European instrument-making traditions, actively working to preserve important Italian musical heritage within the country rather than allowing it to disperse to foreign institutions.

The museum was founded in 1958 when the municipal administration purchased the collection of Natale Gallini, a master from Cremona. This acquisition was combined with several smaller municipal holdings. Initially, the instruments were installed at Palazzo Morando, the home of the Museum of Milan, but this proved inadequate for the large collection, which Gallini further expanded in 1963. The instruments were then moved permanently to the first floor of the Rocchetta in Sforza Castle, in an installation designed by the architectural firm BBPR. The city administration has historically pursued a policy of retaining significant Italian musical instruments within Italy, preventing their sale abroad, a fate that befell the Arrigoni collection, exhibited at the Milan music exhibition of 1881 but sold entirely to Paris a few years later. In 2000, the Fondazione Antonio Monzino donated 79 additional instruments made between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, representing the strong tradition of Lombard lutherie and significantly expanding the collection.

The collection is organized across five rooms, numbered 34 to 38, and encompasses European bowed, plucked, wind, and keyboard instruments from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. A smaller group of extra-European instruments from Africa, China, Japan, and Australia complements the main holdings. The museum places particular emphasis on Lombard instruments and the celebrated Cremonese lutherie tradition, renowned worldwide for its exceptional quality. Technical-scientific analyses of the instruments have been conducted and are presented on wall panels near the works. The collection also preserves the equipment of the former Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, an important postwar electronic music studio. Many instruments are crafted from natural materials, including snake skin, elephant tusks, and tortoise shells.

Among the 48 mandolins in the collection, the most significant is the 1759 instrument by Giuseppe and Carlo Fixer, Milanese brothers who were among the greatest luthiers of their period and introduced important modifications to the classical mandolin, including enlarging the bridge contact area and strengthening the structure with sheep-gut strings. The collection holds sixteen Milanese mandolins, one Genoese example, and four from Brescia, one of which is double-strung. The most important violin is a Cremonese instrument from around 1650, probably by Andrea Guarneri, valued for both its historical and aesthetic significance and its exceptional acoustic character; following restoration in 1989, it was lent to the museum for performance use. The 1662 viola by Giovanni Grancino is notable for its atypical form and details, having escaped the modifications usually made to accommodate changing musical demands, and it continues to be used in important concerts. The guitar collection numbers twenty instruments, including two from the Baroque period and nine six-string guitars, with five chitarre battente among which the seventeenth-century Mango Longo stands out for its refined details. In wind instruments, highlights include the ivory oboe by Anciuti from 1722, preserved in perfect condition and of worldwide importance for its perfection and rarity; the tenor recorder by Bressan (1663-1731), which retains exceptional timbral qualities despite damage; and two Viennese orchestral horns from 1712, recognized as the oldest in the world. The Monzino collection features a guitar-harp and a display trio of guitar with two mandolins, built more to showcase the luthier's skill than for playing, with five pieces dating from the Baroque era.

The museum occupies the first and second floors of the Rocchetta, a defensive structure within the Sforza Castle complex. The present installation was designed by the BBPR architectural firm in the early 1970s. The right wing houses keyboard instruments and part of the other collections, while the left wing has displayed the Arazzi dei mesi (Tapestries of the Months), also known as the Arazzi Trivulzio after their commissioner, since the 1980s. These tapestries, based on cartoons by Bramantino, depict the months from March to February with agricultural labor and allegorical figures, framed by the arms of the Colleoni, Gonzaga, and d'Avalos families. The Sala della Balla, the space now called the Ballroom, was formerly used for grain and flour storage, accounting for its large dimensions. A document from the late fifteenth century describes a hall used for festivities, receptions, balls, and games; though the architect Luca Beltrami incorrectly identified this with the present Sala della Balla in the late nineteenth century, more accurate scholarship locates the original festive hall near another courtyard, where the Museo dei mobili now stands.

The Museum of Musical Instruments is located in Milan, Italy, within the Sforza Castle complex, which also houses the Museum of Ancient Art, the Pinacotheca, the Applied Arts Collection, and the Egyptian Museum (including the prehistoric sections of the Archaeological Museum of Milan). The museum is owned by the city of Milan and operates as part of the civic museum system. Its website is https://strumentimusicali.milanocastello.it/. The institution continues to fulfill its founding mission of preserving and displaying significant musical instruments for public access and scholarly study, maintaining particular strength in Lombard and Cremonese instrument-making traditions.