Museo Polare Etnografico “Silvio Zavatti”

The Museo Polare Etnografico “Silvio Zavatti” is a specialized museum that gathers evidence of the natural environment, travel, research, and art in the Arctic world. Founded in 1969 by the explorer Silvio Zavatti (1917–1985), it comprises, in addition to American Inuit objects (from Canada and Alaska), artistic and everyday items belonging to Greenlandic Inuit, Sámi/Lapps, Ainu, Siberian peoples, and other northern European peoples. Over time, the Zavatti Collection has been enriched by the Alaskan and Greenlandic Inuit collection donated by Jean Malaurie (1922–2024), consisting both of ritual objects and tools for daily use. In 2022 Anna Maria Molinari donated her important and substantial Inuit collection, consisting mainly of lithic artifacts from various Canadian areas and from Nunavut (a Canadian territory that has been autonomous since 1999). The Library and Documentation Center of the Polar Museum are rich in travel accounts, books, and catalogues (on the North American and European Arctic), as well as archival materials including descriptions of the objects and of the context in which they were acquired. The Museum also preserves and displays numerous items that celebrate the major Arctic explorations of the twentieth century in northern Europe, such as navigation instruments, photographs, tents, snow equipment, and natural history specimens collected over the course of scientific research.