The Morigi Collection

The Morigi Collection consists of nine magnificent suits of armour and a helmet with a Japanese mask, donated by Paolo Morigi (1939-2017), a fine collector of ethnic art and supporter of MUSEC since its foundation.

Paolo Morigi was one of the promoters of the birth of the Museum. As early as 1985, he was able to put the right pressure on the Municipality of Lugano to accept the donation of the formidable collection of Serge Brignoni, to whom he was bound by a long-standing friendship, and to elect the Heleneum as the Museum’s first location. For thirty years, Morigi was an assiduous visitor, never failing to help MUSEC, especially in its most difficult moments. The splendid suits of armour were collected over a twenty-year period and range from the late 16th century to the Taishō-Shōwa period (1920-1930).

In 2018, MUSEC dedicated to the Collection a temporary exhibition entitled “The Samurai. From warrior to icon” and a publication going by the same name edited by Moira Luraschi, with surprising content on the life of the samurai and a rich iconographic apparatus. The armours are exhibited in the Spazio Tesoro at Villa Malpensata with free admission. In 2016 a selection of armours was exhibited in Parma in the Governor’s Palace and in 2023 in Turin, as part of the exhibition ‘Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige. Geishas, samurai and the civilisation of pleasure‘.