Scheduled to open to the public in 2011, the MATAM (Museum of Antique Textile Art in Milan) will be the first museum in Italy and in Europe to be dedicated to textile arts only, especially historic carpets, and to foster scholarly research in this specific field. The museum will be housed in a newly renovated building in Brera, the artist’s quarter in the heart of Milan, and will further enrich the city’s cultural life.

As if any reminder were necessary, Milan not only is an international pole for fashion, design and art, it is also considered as the capital of antique carpet collecting. For the chief town of Lombardy, the MATAM is a unique opportunity to play a major role on the Italian and International scenes through the promotion of cultural activities in a field that is closely related to other sectors in which important results and records have already been achieved. Supporting the MATAM project will also mean contributing to the preservation of textile art heritage through the conservation and display of precious textile artefacts in a historical and cultural landscape that is the ideal humus for collecting, and scholarly research.