Museo Calderini

The Museo Calderini in Varallo brings together natural history, ethnography and archaeology relating to the Valsesia. Named for Pietro Calderini, whose initiative founded the civic natural-history museum in 1867, it is housed in the Palazzo dei Musei.

Why it matters

The museum documents the territory and communities of the Valsesia through collections spanning natural history, material culture and archaeology. Its origins lie in Pietro Calderini's nineteenth-century effort to establish a civic museum, supported by the Società d'Incoraggiamento allo Studio del Disegno.

What to notice

The collections include natural-history specimens relating to the valley, objects documenting local material life and craft, and archaeological material. Egyptological rooms were added in 2023. Together, these collections connect the region's environmental history with its human communities and broader cultural exchanges.

Context and history

The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale opened in 1867 in the Palazzo Sociale with support from the Società d'Incoraggiamento allo Studio del Disegno. Archaeological, ethnographic and humanistic collections joined the natural-history core around 1880. After Calderini's death in 1906, the museum took his name. It moved to the Palazzo dei Musei in 1960 and reopened in a new presentation in 2017; ethnographic and Egyptological rooms followed in 2023. The Palazzo dei Musei also houses Varallo's pinacoteca.