GIUSEPPE SCALVINI MUSEUM

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The Giuseppe Scalvini Museum, located in the prestigious Villa Cusani Tittoni Traversi in Desio, was created to accommodate the Scalvini Donation, the important sculptural production that the author has decided to donate to the city municipality.

The museum collection houses more than thirty sculptures including plasters, waxes and bronzes, as well as a precious series of charcoal drawings and engravings, heritage of the master's original works. with Desio, in fact, he is marked by great affection, since, as a young artist, he was commissioned, by the architect Cabiati of Seregno, to create the sculptural group (including two angelic figures) for the tympanum of the Basilica of SS. Siro and Materno. This indissoluble bond led the Maestro to designate Desio as the only place chosen to host   some of his most famous works. Desio welcomed the will of the artist  inaugurating the Scalvini Museum (whose permanent section consists of the donation of the author) with the intention of offering a tribute to the creativity and intensity of artistic expression of the Maestro, but above all to perpetrate the gratitude that the city has towards him.

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The Scalvini Museum is located inside the Villa Cusani Tittoni Traversi, built by Piermarini, the famous architect of the Royal Villa of Monza and of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. In 1651, the Marquis Cusani bought the land, on which stood a Franciscan convent, and built his "Villa di delizia", a monumental complex behind which you can see a magnificent English garden designed by Antonio Villoresi. In the 19th century the villa became the property of the lawyer Giovanni Battista Traversi, who entrusted the renovation to the architect Pelagio Palagi and the botanist Giovanni Casoretti. Palagi's work is impressive, thanks to his ingenuity we can admire the structures of the square in front and the magnificent cast iron gate, above which splendid statues in Carrara marble stand out. Casoretti worked to make the garden one of a kind, gathering more than 700 tree specimens, including the Camelia Japonica Traversi, dedicated to its benefactor. Finally, the villa came into the possession of the Tittoni family, to whom we owe the staircase commissioned to the architect Luca Beltrami.

Between the two world wars, Villa Tittoni suffered a rapid decline and part of its heritage was lost, but the intervention of the Municipality helped to safeguard the structure, making it the seat of the municipal library and opening its garden to the public. Finally, in 1999, Scalvini's donation returned to the villa an artistic dimension that it still has today.

Currently the villa is open to the public for events, exhibitions, demonstrations and guided tours. The activity of the Scalvini Museum, curated by Cristiano Plicato, stands out above all.