PIME | Museo Popoli e Culture

The Museo Popoli e Culture, founded in 1910 thanks to the work of the PIME missionaries, is dedicated to the knowledge of world cultures and houses a composite collection of goods from Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America.
Starting in autumn 2019, the museum will be presented with an entirely new layout that also includes immersive and interactive multimedia stations to offer, for example, the possibility of leafing through the oldest atlas in China, wearing a Chinese literary outfit from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) or playing Burmese drums.
The collections are arranged according to thematic strands ranging from oriental philosophies, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, to textiles, rituals and everyday life.
The first collections were brought to Italy by Fr Carlo Salerio, who left in 1852 for Papua New Guinea for the first PIME mission.
Only a few pieces were saved from that first collection, however, as almost all of them were destroyed in the air raids on Milan in 1943.
Archive photos give us an image of a museum full of unusual objects and stuffed animals, intended to amaze visitors and transport them to the exotic atmosphere that the imagination attributed to faraway countries in those days.
From then on, the museum would follow a long path of evolution, both in its layout and its educational aims, which led it to take its current name of Museo Popoli e Culture in 1994, underlining its focus on people and relationships.
The educational offer is broad and articulated and is aimed at schools, groups, families and individuals with the aim of providing experiences and tools useful for personal growth and knowledge of the museum's contents.