The combined house and museum created by the Milanese collector Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli are known all over the world. Poldi Pezzoli was born in Milan in 1822. His father Giuseppe inherited great wealth both from his paternal family, the Poldi of Parma, and from that of his mother, the Pezzoli d'Albertone of Bergamo. Rosa Trivulzio, his mother, belonged to one of the oldest Milanese families with a long tradition of collecting, for which Gian Giacomo soon developed a passion. He began building his extraordinary art collection in the 1840s, not only paintings (including masterpieces by Pollaiolo, Botticelli, Giovanni Bellini, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Tiepolo and Guardi) but also sculptures and important objects of decorative arts, armor and weapons, glassware, ceramics, jewelry, solar and mechanical clocks, carpets and furniture. At the same time, Poldi Pezzoli used his money and his energies to renovate his apartment according to the taste of the time, calling upon the major artists and decorators for the purpose. This was the feat of a lifetime, which ended in 1879 with the sudden death of the collector. The museum was opened to the public in 1881 according to his wishes. It is one of the earliest Italian artistic foundations and still retains all the interest and atmosphere of a house and museum combined despite the damage it sustained during World War II. In addition to the evocative nineteenth-century style historic rooms, you can admire those recently redesigned for exhibition purposes, namely the weapons room designed by the artist Arnaldo Pomodoro (2000), the gold room (2006) and the collector's room. The strong ties that have always existed between the museum and collectors are evidenced by a number of major donations over the years, including sundials and mechanicals, lace and embroidery, drawings and paintings, porcelain and netsuke. The museum organizes exhibitions, conferences, courses, concerts with ancient musical instruments and activities for schools and families. Aids available to the public include catalogs, educational publications, free audio guides for adults and children and a museum shop. The Poldi Pezzoli Museum is on facebook and the files can be downloaded from www.museopoldipezzoli.it for smartphones.