The "Museo d'Arte e Scienza" was opened in 1990 under the name "Musei Didattici" (Teaching Museums).The Museum's founder was Gottfried Matthaes;a German physicist belonging to a family of longstanding artistic tradition;who died last year at the age of 90.At the end of World War II he inherited the teaching collections used by the school of painting founded in Dresden in 1906 by the Matthaes-Kurau couple.Being himself an avid art lover and collector;Matthaes decided to acquire exhibition space in the Palazzo Bonacossa;just opposite the Sforzesco Castle;where visitors can admire numerous antiques selected not for their beauty but for their didactic value with the aim of helping them to tell "fake" from authentic antiques.The Museum's own internal scientific laboratory also devotes itself to the ascertainment of the authenticity of art works and the dating of wooden artefacts;issuing certificates for public entities and private collectors alike.
Moreover;two of the Museum's rooms house a rich collection of Buddhist art objects entitled "East Asian Buddhist Art";and there is also an outstanding collection of African masks and sculptures (currently closed to the public for renovation work) constituting the second section dedicated to non-European cultures.The Museum has recently begun staging cultural events and series of conferences on specific themes;like the coming exhibition "Fragments of Japan";organized in collaboration between the association "Japan in Italy" and the association "Friends of the Museo d'Arte e Scienza".