Museo Civico di Scienze Naturali “Enrico Caffi” di Bergamo

The ethnographic collections of the Museo “Enrico Caffi” comprise two main nuclei, one American and the other African. Already the museum’s earliest core holdings included a collection of about 500 artifacts from the two continents, gathered and subsequently donated to the city of Bergamo by people of diverse cultural backgrounds and social status. Over time the museum’s ethnographic collections have been enriched by significant additions, and today they comprise around 1,200 artifacts; above all, they have been the object of specialist studies by Italian and foreign scholars, which have brought to light their particular documentary and historical value.

The American collection consists of two nuclei. The most important is the famous North American collection assembled by Giacomo Costantino Beltrami in the early nineteenth century, whose display has recently been reinstalled. The collection also includes a number of notable pieces from Mexico and Haiti. The second nucleus corresponds to a smaller group of materials from Paraguay gathered by Gaspare Zineroni and Faustino Borra.