音频游览 01. Introduction and history of the building

WELCOME TO PALAZZO MARLIANI CICOGNA!

Before starting your visit to the museum, we invite you to take a seat in the first room for a brief introduction to the Palazzo and its history. If you’d rather deepen the main contents of the collection, go to the next audio content about Sala Don Rossi.

Palazzo Marliani Cicogna now hosts the “Civiche Raccolte d’Arte di Busto Arsizio” (Civic Art Collection of Busto Arsizio), but it was originally a noble residence. In fact, the palace takes its name from the two families who lived there in the past centuries. At first, it was counts Marliani’s mansion, owners of Busto Arsizio’s fief between the XVII and the XVIII century, and then Cicogna’s mansion between 1799 and 1822. Placed in the downtown, the palace was the centre and the silent witness of the city’s history and underwent tragic changes too. In the XX century the palace became seat of the Municipality and then seat of the Tribunal; these functions largely distorted its style and its original structural conformation.
During some popular unrest in 1910, the stone lion, Marliani family’s symbol, placed above the main gate of the palace, was shot down. In order to build via Borroni, in compliance with Cesare Albertini’s master plan of the city, the eastern part of the palace was demolished in 1936. Of the oldest phase of the building we can only see the small niche on the first floor in the room dedicated to the XIX century painting. The niche presents floral star decorations in red. Their period and attribution are very uncertain.
In 1971-1972 Busto Arsizio’s Municipality commissioned a graphic and photographic relief of the building complex which was in an important degrading state, particularly as regards to the wooden ceilings. Three of the four decorated wooden ceilings in the first floor locals overlooking the square were brought to light by architect Giuseppe Magini in 1972. Three other decorated ceilings were discovered in 1976 due to the will of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti della Lombardia.

Nowadays the palace hosts two important cultural institutions of the city: the “Civiche Raccolte d’Arte” and the public library “G. Battista Roggia”.

Palazzo Cicogna’s Museum was established in 1960 when the "Civic Historical Artistic Museum" of the city was instituted by a specific deliberation of the Municipality of Busto Arsizio. However, the idea of the museum remained only on paper for several decades, as there was no suitable location to house it. In the late 1980s, Palazzo Marliani Cicogna, owned by the Municipality for several decades, was identified for this purpose.
An initial phase of the restoration of the palace began and, simultaneously, a selection of artworks to be exhibited was made. On May 3, 1990, the first eight rooms of the museum on the first floor of Palazzo Marliani Cicogna were opened with around fifty works, including paintings, drawings, documents and sculptures. From this moment onwards, the civic heritage was divided into two areas: on the one hand, the heritage of the museum collection and, on the other hand, the artworks destined to remain in the offices and representative rooms of the Town Hall.
Over time, the collection has been enriched by the generosity of enlightened donors and targeted acquisitions by the Municipal Administration. Additionally, since 1996, the institution of “Premi di pittura” (Painting Prizes) of the city of Busto Arsizio has provided the opportunity to create a section of contemporary art. In fact, not only the works selected from the competition but also other artworks were donated, either by artists or by the city’s cultural associations. In 2002, a new restoration allowed to double the exhibiting spaces and to create equipped museum storage, service areas for archives and the art library, as well as an area for temporary exhibitions. Since 2013, the exhibition spaces on the ground floor have hosted exhibitions of the project "Uno spazio per l'arte" (A Space for Art), during which proposals of contemporary art exhibitions curated by individual artists or groups are periodically selected.