For the International Museum Day 2023 “Museums. Sustainability and Wellbeing” the Province of Lecco has organized various initiatives in the House Museum of Villa Monastero, managed by the curator Anna Ranzi.
The aim of the multiannual programming of the Sistema Museale della provincia di Lecco is entirely focused on this important argument together with social inclusion in the museums, with targeted initiatives that will take place this year through the project “Feel good at the Museum”.
Until 18th June in the exhibition space of Villa Monastero, it will be possible to visit the exhibition with images and documents remembering the De Marchi Family and the 85th anniversary of the Istituto lariano di Idrobiologia Marco De Marchi.
A path of study aimed both at the figure of De Marchi as a natural science scholar and at his biographical story.
He was born in 1872 in Milan, he graduated in science with a thesis on “Kingfishers of Argentina”: the text was published in the proceedings of the Italian Naturalists Congress of 1906-1907 as it expanded and updated the classification and the number of species of hummingbirds known until then.
In the following years, he devoted himself to the study of plankton and lake fauna and equipped a limnological laboratory in his villa in Pallanza on Lake Maggiore (now home to the Institute for the Study of Ecosystems of the CNR) and at Villa Monastero.
He designed a monograph on lake fauna but managed to complete only a small part of the investigations, summarized in two publications. He also took care of the alpine lakes’ fauna and verified the presence of hitherto unreported species. A small plant today bears its name: Epilobium Demarchianum.
He promoted the development of the Italian Society of Natural Sciences, of which he was first vice-president (1910-1911), then president until 1936, the year of his death. He founded in 1909 and financially supported the magazine “Natura”, which he donated to the Society with considerable financial contributions.
He enriched the collections of the Museo Civico di Scienze Naturali in Milan with various donations, preventing the purchase of precious bibliographical collections from foreign museums. He financed various expeditions and the publication of scientific works.
Finally, he arranged at his own expense the alpine garden created by Abbot P. Chanoix at the Piccolo San Bernardo, also equipping it with a botanical laboratory.
Also, for International Museum Day will be presented an unpublished photo album of the garden made in the thirties by a relative of the Family, the photographer Achille Gherini De Marchi, that will be donated to the museum collections after the exhibition.
In addition, it will be possible to examine a factsheet that illustrates the project “Valorization of the identity of the historic garden Villa Monastero”, curated by the landscape architect Valerio Cozzi and currently underway, funded thanks to the Pnnr.
Finally, the exhibition dedicated to the Sistema Museale della provincia di Lecco will remain in the exhibition space to promote the System through the new bilingual brochure renewed with all 51 participating realities.
All initiatives are included in the entrance ticket to Villa Monastero.
