The story of the museum

The idea of building a museum in Maccagno, a small commune with a population of 2200 in the province of Varese, started developing in 1977. Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi, an artist born in Maccagno in 1915 who had been working for years as a teacher and visual researcher, comes back to the Lake Maggiore for a vacation and is fascinated by its atmosphere. The environment is still relatively uncontaminated, and there’s a certain liveliness due to the increasing number of tourists; the town is not far away from Switzerland, and the lake and the surrounding hills make it a very relaxing place. All these factors stir a renewed interest in the area inside the artist.  He begins to think about the hours he’s spent talking with his friend Argan, and the Roman artists and people involved in the cultural environment about the ideal place for an Art Center: a spot distant from big cities. To his happiness, he realizes that his hometown would be a perfect choice for such a project.
After the first meetings with the commune’s officials – who do not rule out the viability of the project – Parisi, supported by his wife, Wanda Valle, decides to make his collection of over two thousand works available to the commune. This wide collection includes both works by Parisi and by many other contemporary artists. In fact, Parisi has “exchanged” works with many of his fellow artists, who very often were also his friends and influenced Parisi’s personal vision.



Parisi-Valle’s donation to the Commune of Maccagno - which founds the cultural pole “Fondazione Parisi-Valle” in 1979 after approval by the communal council - is finalized in 1998 thanks to the fundamental support of the Provincia di Varese, and results in the construction of one of the very few Italian museums built after the war.