Pasino Bagatti Valsecchi (Milan, 1901-1976), heir of the family’s art collections, decided to donate the collections of Renaissance art and daily objects collected at the end of the 19^th century by his uncle, Fausto, and his father, Giuseppe, to the foundation. At the same time, the mansion was sold to the Region of Lombardy with the proviso that the historic displays on the noble, or first, floor of the building would be conserved in their integrity in order to preserve the indissoluble tie between the “contained” (that is, the collections) and the “container” (that is, the spaces for which they were intended), the distinctive feature of the collection history of the Bagatti Valsecchi. The 22 November 1994 opening of the museum to the public marked a fundamental step in the life of the foundation.

In fact, this desire was one of the strongest motivations for the constitution of the foundation. Pasino and his heirs wanted to protect the Bagatti Valsecchi home and its collections from the risk of the dispersion and dismembering that almost every passage to the next generation entails. They were fully aware that it was an extraordinary example of collecting and culture of the end of the 19^th century. Alongside the precise will to preserve and care for the fruit of the collecting activities of their ancestors was not just the desire to open the home in via Gesù to the public, but also to make it a museum that the public could visit and enjoy.