The orderly development of private initiative in recovering cultural treasures has been helped by legislation. A law sponsored by the Ministry for Culture and the Environment in 1975 stresses the necessity to preserve works of art for posterity. This statement has become the rational parameter for all lawmakers proposing an organic system of protection.
Of the various types of organisation involved in conservation, the most important are the Fondazioni (foundations). These institutions have been granted legal status as Moral Institutions, whose patrimony, destined to fulfil a given purpose of interest to the community, is protected by the same law.
Emilio Carlo Mangini, from Milan has followed the paths of collectors all over Europe, sniffing out and carefully observing his “prey”, an endeavour made possible thanks also to the money available to him. The treasures he found today form the “Emilio Carlo Mangini Foundation“.
On his premature death Giuseppe Mangini (1945-1988), left a Collection of Modern Art which his father has assembled and placed on display in one of the rooms on the fourth floor of the Foundation. Giuseppe was a man of great culture with a degree in liberal arts and a passion for archeology, and it is he who must be thanked for choosing the building in via dell’Ambrosiana 20 as the site for the Foundation, and for enriching the collection with precious objects.
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