Civiche Raccolte d’Arte di Palazzo Marliani Cicogna

The Municipal Museum of Art History was formally established in 1960, starting from the work of a committee created in 1959 with the aim of giving shape to the idea of a City Museum, destined to preserve and enhance the artistic works - including those of a local scope - that had become part of the municipal heritage. As early as 1931, in fact, an initial nucleus of works by Emilio Magistretti was destined for the Municipality with the intention of establishing a picture gallery: it consisted of ten paintings donated in 1927 by the artist to the Società Bustese di Storia e d'Arte, which in turn transferred them to the Municipality. Despite this, the idea of the museum remained on paper for a long time, even after the institution of the Civic Art Collections, due to the lack of a suitable venue to display the collections, which were temporarily kept in the spaces of Palazzo Gilardoni, then the municipal headquarters.

It was not until 1990 that the museum finally opened to the public in its current location, Marliani Cicogna Palace, Over the years, the museum has undergone careful restoration work that has doubled the exhibition spaces, equipped storage areas for works of art, service areas for archives and the library, and an area dedicated to temporary exhibitions. Numerous and diversified exhibitions have been hosted over time: from reviews dedicated to local artists of the first half of the 20th century, to exhibitions of a historical nature centred on images, research and documents of the territory, to didactic proposals and thematic workshops aimed at schools and families, designed to bring the public closer to the collection through an approach that is both playful and educational. Over the years, the museum has also promoted important exhibitions dedicated to Busto artists such as Arturo Tosi e Daniele Crespi. Currently, the museum also houses the exhibition container dedicated to contemporary art A Space for Art.