Monzino Collection

The itinerary opens with a section dedicated to the Monzino family, including equipment and materials used to build bowed and plucked instruments, such as violin and guitar moulds, saws, scalpels and around forty musical instruments. In addition to a group of instruments made around the 17th and 18th centuries and acquired by the family itself.  The collection includes the production of various luthiers who worked for the Monzinos, among these are violas, violins, guitars and both Milanese and Neapolitan mandolins. Of particular interest is an “arcichitarra” made by Severino Riva in 1911 and a “trio”: an assemblage of a guitar and two mandolins to form a single instrument, a masterpiece built by Innocente Rottola in 1906.

In the next room, at the end of a selection of ethnographical musical instruments, the exhibition is organised into typological groupings. Bowed instruments, subdivided by geographical area constitute a record of Italy’s output, and include among others, the work of Carlo Giuseppe Testore from Milan, Ceruti from Cremona and Giovanni Battista Bodio from Venice.

Plucked instruments

Equally impressive is the section containing plucked instruments, among which are archlutes and chitarroni, five course guitars, chitarre battenti, and prevalently Neapolitan and Milanese mandolins from different eras and produced by important makers such as  Presbler, Fixer, Fabricatore, Vinaccia and Filano.

Wind instruments

The wind section is represented by a small number of brass instruments and by a large contingent of woodwinds: flutes, clarinets, oboes and bassoons made principally by important Milanese makers such as Pietro Piana, Ubaldo Luvoni, Alessandro Maldura and Agostino Rampone, but also instruments by master craftsmen from other countries. This section contains Bressan’s tenor recorder, Anciuti’s oboe, a small clarinet made by Savary – father, an oboe by Heinrich Grenser, flutes produced by the 19th century Viennese Ziegler workshop, which remained in use in Italy for a long time, and the unusual flute walking sticks. 

Studio di Fonologia

Also on display since 2008, in a specially prepared area, is the equipment from RAI’s musical recording studio (Studio di Fonologia). The brainchild of Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna, it was officially inaugurated at RAI’s Corso Sempione headquarters in 1955 and remained active until 1983.

Harps, kit violins, hurdy gurdies and violas

Within the Museum one can also admire various examples of harps, kit violins - portable violins typically used by dance instructors in the 1700s, a number of hurdy gurdies (a medieval instrument that was in vogue among French courtesans between the 17 and 18 hundreds and is still used today in folk music) and some violas, including one by the famed maker Colichon.

Keyboard instruments

The evocative Sala della Balla (room 37) contains keyboard instruments such as harpsichords, virginals and spinets, some of which are pieces of international renown. Particularly worthy of mention is Joannes Ruckers’ double virginal. The itinerary closes with a room dedicated to the 19th century piano: from Rosemberger’s grand pianos and Pape’s square pianos to giraffe pianos.