Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano

The Museo civico di storia naturale (“Municipal Museum of Natural History”) in Milan is one of the most important natural history museums in Italy .

Front of the natural history museum

history

The museum was founded on the initiative of the naturalist and collector Giuseppe De Cristoforis (1803-1837). He had bequeathed his collection to the city of Milan on condition that a museum be set up for it, with the management of his friend Giorgio Jan (1791–1866). He also left his natural history collection to the museum. After initial disagreements regarding the size and location of the museum, it was founded in 1838 and finally built in the neo-Romanesque style between 1888 and 1893 .

In 1943, the museum was completely destroyed by bombing, with half of the exhibits being lost. After the war it was rebuilt and opened to the public again in 1952.

location

The museum is located on the eastern edge of the Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli city park , not far from the planetarium. The address is Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Corso Venezia, 55 - 20121 Milano.

exhibition

Today the museum has 23 exhibition rooms on two levels with a total exhibition area of 5,500 m². Around 100 dioramas show scenes from fauna and flora in different natural landscapes. The museum has an important library with around 140,000 volumes and 2,400 periodicals .

The permanent exhibitions cover the subject areas

Among the special attractions include the fossil collection of Besanogletschers , 200 million year old reptile contains, as well as seven complete dinosaur skeletons and the reconstruction of a Triceratops . Another specialty is "the first Italian dinosaur" Scipionyx samniticus .