The Municipality of Milan – Civic Art Collections has favored the birth of the Nineteenth-century Lombard Art Museum Network: Works and Places so as to enhance the historical-artistic period when Milan and Lombardy were the crossroads of cultural exchange for Europe, and formally acknowledge the key role of the Modern Art Gallery.
This project, developed in 2004 by the Modern Art Gallery, includes: the Picture Gallery of Brera in Milan, Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, Civic Museums of Monza, of Pavia, and of Legnano, Ville Carlotta of Tremezzo and Vigoni of Menaggio, Villa Reale of Monza, Province of Milan – with Palazzo Isimbardi – and, as general coordinators, the Regional Directorate. The Lombardy Region has recognized the Museum Network and is its promoter.
This network, in compliance with the autonomy of each member museum, is committed to:
• Enhancing the collections in Lombardy’s public and private museums by creating territorial itineraries, publishing guides, and creating a web site that singles out and enhances the things the collections have in common;
• Promoting programmed conservation through an exchange of ideas and research pertaining to maintenance and restoration, technical-scientific management of heritage displayed to the public and collected in storage;
• Coordinating and supporting historical research in the fields of restoration and its methods, planning and organizing seminars, conferences, training/update classes;
• Opening a museum-technique workshop center that guarantees consultation and support for conserving and planning target restoration projects, even concerning the organization of storage and exposition halls;
• Compiling a general catalogue of 19th-century Lombard Art while promoting and coordinating scholarly entries that integrate SIRBeC cataloguing;
• Elaborating shared projects, even extra-regional, national, or international ones; planning and organizing seminars and conferences, training/update classes;
• Offering learning and integrated scientific divulgation tools;
• Planning and organizing exhibitions to hold in the museums of artistic-historic importance with works in storage that today cannot be viewed by the public;
• Compiling bibliographies according to museums, artists, themes.
